![]() ![]() ![]() Those unable to create new memories require high levels of supervision, or reminders to ensure they go about their routine without memory triggers. In the case of retrograde amnesia, psychotherapy is sometimes recommended, along with ensuring the surroundings of the patient have plenty of cues to remind them of the life they’ve forgotten – photographs, familiar objects… even smells and music to trigger their previous memories. ![]() If a brain cell is dead, it cannot be replaced – but in cases where the illness is temporary, certain guidance is advised for aiding the patient to return to normal. Certain kinds will “fix themselves” after a time – perhaps in minutes, perhaps in months. That very much depends on the type of amnesia, and the severity. On top of this, retrograde amnesia can also be triggered by various other factors including strokes, tumours, hypoxia, encephalitis and alcoholism. This can trigger either anterograde or retrograde amnesia, or both simultaneously, and the severity seems to relate to the seriousness of the impact. Post-traumatic amnesias are usually caused by some kind of head injury. In short, intoxicants impair the formation of new memories, so they aren’t stored.ĭissociative amnesia – that is to say when memory loss seems to be triggered by a traumatic event – seems to be some kind of defence mechanism, but could also be seen as a symptom of post-traumatic stress. What are the causes of amnesia?ĭepending on the type, there are various possible causes.Ĭertain kinds of amnesia are driven by narcotics of some kind – either alcohol or something harder. The short-term amnesia that many students will be familiar with: excessive drinking leading to “black spots” of a particular night of excess. Typically, this would be triggered by a life event that the patient couldn’t adequately cope with, and the sufferer will find their memories restoring over the space of a few days. Patients suddenly forget both their past and their identity – right down to not recognising their reflection in the mirror. It is also defined by lasting for only a very short period of time. Extremely rare, most common in older patients and usually found in tandem with a vascular disease. Transient global amnesiaĪll memory is temporarily lost, and new ones can’t be formed. It gets worse over time, and is often accompanied by neurological problems and the loss of feeling in the extremities. The kind of memory loss caused either by extended alcohol abuse or by malnutrition. This would usually be accompanied by a loss of consciousness, but the good news is that this kind of amnesia is usually temporary. This kind of amnesia is caused by a very hard impact to the head, such as a car accident. Anything from child abuse to traumatic war incidents can cause this. On top of these main two, there are various subsets of amnesia, which are considerably less common: Psychogenic amnesiaĪlso known as “functional” or “dissociative” amnesia, this kind of memory loss causes the patient to forget the event that triggered their amnesia. This was the case with Clive Wearing, an accomplished British musician who was the subject of a number of documentaries such as the one below. In other words, it’s possible (though rare) for a patient to lose all of their pre-amnesia memories, and yet be unable to forge new ones to replace them. This is less common.Ĭruelly, having anterograde amnesia is no guarantee of a patient being free of retrograde amnesia, or vice versa. Retrograde is kind of the opposite: memories from before the trigger are lost, but new memories are still able to be formed. Anterograde amnesia is usually caused by brain damage – from a blow to the head, for example. In this instance, memories stored before amnesia struck would remain fully accessible. In other words, anything that happens after their trigger will not be recalled, due to a failure to commit short-term memories into long-term ones. Anterograde amnesia:Īnterograde amnesia is when a patient can no longer create new memories. There are two main types of amnesia: anterograde and retrograde. What different types of amnesia are there?
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