UPDATED; Wounded congresswoman regaining more physical function.

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords appears to be steadily regaining physical function and awareness six days after she was shot through the head by a gunman at close range, doctors said on Friday.

Giffords, 40, is improving in her ability to follow simple voice commands, such as to raise her fingers or wiggle her toes and is opening her eyes more frequently, Dr. Michael Lemole told reporters at the University Medical Center in Tucson.

"We're actually confident that she's making some progress now," Lemole said. "And we can even think that she is beginning to carry out more sequences of events, more complex sequences of activity, in response to our commands, or even spontaneously."

He added that doctors were "very encouraged that she's continuing to make all the right moves in the right direction." She opened her eyes for the first time since the shooting on Wednesday while surrounded by friends and family just after a visit to her hospital room by President Barack Obama.

Doctors have said they believed that was a key sign of her becoming more aware of her surroundings.

"We couldn't have hoped for any better improvement than we're seeing now given the severity of her injury initially," he said.

Giffords, just elected to her third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, was shot through the head when a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol at a meet-and-greet event for constituents outside a Tucson supermarket on Saturday.

Six bystanders were killed, but Giffords was the most gravely wounded of 13 others who were struck by gunfire. A 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, is charged as the lone gunman in the rampage.

Lemole said doctors have yet to decide when to remove a breathing tube from Giffords' throat in order to see if she could speak, considered one of the next major milestones in her recovery.

Another of the hospitalized shooting survivors, Ron Barber, director Giffords' congressional district office in Arizona, was discharged on Friday in time to attend the funeral for federal Judge John Roll, one of the six who died.

Another member of Giffords' staff who was shot twice on Saturday, Pam Simon, 63, returned to work on Friday.

Giffords, still listed in critical condition, is one of four patients still hospitalized at UMC with bullet wounds. The three others are listed in good condition.