How long Rosemary remained at Craig House before moving to Saint Coletta in 1949 is established by the dates — eight years — but the specifics of those years are not well-documented in publicly accessible sources. What therapy she received, what her daily life consisted of, what progress she may have made or failed to make in that period — these details are not available in the sources consulted for this article.
What is documented is that by the time of the move to Saint Coletta in 1949, she had regained enough function to walk, though with a limp that would persist for the rest of her life. The recovery of walking ability is significant: it suggests that the neurological damage, while severe and permanent in key respects, was not total. The brain has a degree of plasticity, particularly in younger people, that can allow some recovery of function after injury. Whatever Rosemary relearned — walking with a limp, managing some basic activities of daily life — she relearned the hard way, without the support of sophisticated rehabilitation medicine that would have been available decades later.
Her right arm remained palsied — weakened and limited in its range of motion. Her speech never returned to the level it had been before the surgery; she could produce words and short phrases but not sustained, clear conversation. The frontal lobe connections whose severing had been intended to calm her mood and reduce her agitation had also damaged the neural pathways supporting complex motor coordination, speech production, and emotional regulation.