Faculty expert explains how the RUBI Center helps brain injury survivors

The Radford University Brain Injury (RUBI) Center was created to increase life participation for brain injury survivors with cognitive and/or communication impairments while educating and training the university’s pre-professional healthcare students. 

The RUBI center aims to be a unique clinical learning experience that allows student clinicians to apply research and classroom information to the care and betterment of their clients by addressing functional personalized therapy goals as they participate in the activities of life.

The center’s services primarily include individual and group speech-language pathology intervention as well as expanded group offerings that incorporate a variety of activities that promote the social, communication and cognitive needs unique to brain injury survivors. 

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month. Radford senior instructor Rebecca Epperly recently spoke about RUBI’s service and the center’s role in helping brain injury survivors increase their participation in life. Epperly is a licensed and certified speech-language pathologist and directs the RUBI center with her co-founder, Terri Shelor, who is also a senior instructor in Radford’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Q: How can brain injuries affect a person’s daily life, and what are some of the most common challenges people face after sustaining a brain injury?  

A: “Brain injuries can affect literally every aspect of a person’s life. Biologically speaking, your brain is everything you are: your personality, your ability to communicate, emotional expression, physical movements, ability to swallow safely, social interactions, behavioral regulation, cognitive functioning, etc. 

The location and extent of your brain injury determine what skills are affected. This means there is a lot of variability in brain injury. For example, 85-90% of the population is left-hemisphere dominant for language, so an injury like a stroke or brain tumor in the left hemisphere of the brain may cause language deficits, but those language deficits won’t necessarily be the same.  

We’re all ‘wired’ slightly different.  We have a saying in rehabilitation: ‘If you’ve seen one brain injury, you’ve seen one brain injury.’”

Q: What is the role of RUBI, and how is it increasing life participation for brain injury survivors?  

A: “The Radford University Brain Injury (RUBI) Center was formally founded in 2022 as a specialty clinic within the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic. The primary mission of the RUBI clinic is to provide outpatient group therapy for brain injury survivors while also training speech-language pathology graduate students.  

We welcome collaboration from other healthcare disciplines as well, and this semester, we are also providing occupational therapy, music therapy and recreation therapy. Recovery from a brain injury is often a lifelong process, so once patients leave the hospital and exhaust their rehabilitation insurance benefits, they still have a lot of life to live. You or I may decide to join a book group or attend an exercise class in our free time. Following a brain injury, activities like these can be challenging or intimidating to join in the community. RUBI provides a supportive therapeutic environment that allows survivors to engage in these types of activities with other brain injury survivors.  

We currently have 13 groups that meet weekly. We have a written language group, a public speaking group, an expressive language group and three different levels of reading groups, just to name a few. Many of our clients attend multiple sessions in a day. Therefore, we also have a waiting area specifically for the clients and their caregivers. Brain injuries affect the entire family, and it’s important to provide a place for the caregivers to meet and support each other.”

Q: How does the Radford University community support individuals with brain injury?

A: “We offer a community outing monthly that many survivors, as well as caregivers, attend. Sometimes, we go off-campus to places like the pumpkin patch at Sinkland Farms, but we are very lucky to be a part of the Radford University community. This has allowed us to take advantage of all that the university has to offer in the New River Valley. We’ve toured the greenhouse, enjoyed Radford Planetarium shows, explored art exhibits and been entertained by the music department.”

About Epperly 

Radford University senior instructor Rebecca Epperly is a certified speech-language pathologist, serves as clinical director in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and is the co-founder of the Radford University Brain Injury (RUBI) Center. 

Email: rdepperly@radford.edu 
Phone: 540-831-7640