Anterograde Amnesia Case Study

Retrograde Amnesia has pros and cons. Pros would be forgetting about bad ex’s and tragic events like rape or witnessing a murder. Not remembering were keys are or where you live would be a con. Retrograde Amnesia is recollection failure Derivative of neurological or psychological nature. Retro means recent past or before so the name really speaks for itself. Early signs for retrograde amnesia would be consistency of forgetting things that not so long ago happened or getting lost in places where you should have known were to be. Forgetting names like I myself sometimes forget might seem like a symptom but it’s not. People generally differ in their knowledge in degrees when it comes to factual information. However, if forgetting names of relatives

However, research shows that people can often have anterograde amnesia, where memory cannot be retrieved because the subject cannot store new information in their short-term memory. This could be due to brain damage from alcohol or drugs, formally called Korsakoff’s syndrome, which causes loss of nerve cells and memory impairment (McLeod 2011). Consequently, even though the memory of killing Hae may exist, the memory does not transfer to become long-term. On the other hand, one might argue that Adnan’s amnesia wore out, but he refused to admit his actions even to himself; however, his defensiveness and body language might indicate this

Clive Wearing suffers from aterograde amnesia as well as retrograde amnesia. This means that he can not create new memories and lost all of the old ones he had. About 30 years ago he had gotten a herpes virus that attacks your nervous system. This illness has impacted his life in several ways. He became so ill that he can no longer form any type of memories except for realizing who his wife is, knowing his children, and piano playing. His memory was said to last anywhere from 7 to 30 seconds at most. His wife said while eaing he forgot what he had within the short span of time that it took his fork to reach his mouth. He could not link the taste of food with the name because he suddenly forgot everything. It was like starting over every 30

The autobiography, Over My Head, by Claudia Osborn, gave a glimpse into the life of a former Doctor. The book started by giving insight into Claudia’s life including her challenging career, whom she spent her days with and how she used her free time. Based on the title of the book I was expecting her to suffer from a traumatic brain injury, but I had not anticipated her reaction to it. Although I was aware of some disorientation after the incident, and even some memory loss, I was unaware of her disorientation to the life she once knew. Initially, when Claudia did not realize she had any memory deficits, I was convinced it was due to denial. She was a doctor, I would have thought she would understand her injury and recognize that her injury was as severe as it truly was. Later on in the book, I realized that she was not completely in denial, but truly thought there was nothing truly wrong with her. This could possibly be due to her perspective that nothing bad would happen to her. Every one sees something bad happen whether it is a car accident, cancer, or a traumatic brain injury and they think, “ It won’t happen to me.” In Claudia’s case, it is an extremely frightening and frustrating situation.

Anterograde amnesia refers to a memory deficit from brain injury that prevents patients to store new informations in their short term memories. The patients show normal memories for events that occurred before the injury but has severely impaired ability to recall information about events that occurred after the incident. Anterograde amnesia is reflected in the movie “50 first dates” through the main character, Lucy Whitmore, whose memory lasts only a day because her memory stopped on the day of car accident. (additional description) The movie, “50 first dates,” contains valid depiction of anterograde amnesia yet it also contains some dramatic points that is far from reality.

Amnesia is typically defined as partial or total loss of memory. The occurrence of amnesia can arise at any age. Individuals who suffer from amnesia typically remain lucid and preserve their sense of self. Amnesiacs can obtain a perfectly normal appearance despite the amnesia. Moreover, they also have the capacity to read and comprehend words. Based on these facts, researchers have arrived at the conclusion that more than one area in the brain is used for storing facts.

Memories are crucial to everything we do every day. Without memories we would not know who is important to us or what we enjoy doing. We use our memories continuously, even when we do not realize that we are. In her memoir Brain on Fire, Susannah Cahalan loses much of her episodic memory from the time period in which she battled Anti-NDMA-receptor encephalitis. Because of this, she loses a portion of her identity, and struggles for a period of time while attempting to find herself again.

Anterograde Amnesia is the inability to store new information after the brain damage has occurred. (Luke Mastin 2010). Anterograde Amnesia is very rare, in fact there have a few cases where the amnesia was "pure". The symptoms and hardship of the person depend on the cause for the memory loss. Some symptoms of Anterograde Amnesia are partial memory loss, having a hard time recognizing relatives or family, feeling of confusion, difficulty taking in new information, inability to remember familiar places, and difficulty in learning and remembering new things.(PHC Editorial Team 2013) Characteristics of Anterograde Amnesia are abnormally small hippocampi bilaterally and elevated hippocampal water.(Mayo Clinic 2014) There are many ways to recognize

If one works within the medical field, it is almost certain they have encountered a man know as, “patient HM”. Today, patient HM represents one of the most intriguing yet discouraging conditions known to man; anterograde amnesia. Not only was patient HM unable to create new memories, but when he fell asleep his experiences from that day were practically wiped away. Not only was this one of the most puzzling occurrences to date, but soon to be the focus of many productions in the media (Dahl, 1993). In 2004, director Peter Segal released a movie that would soon be an imperfect medium for understanding anterograde amnesia.

This isn’t even a real condition; however, Barrymore’s symptoms match a real form of amnesia called “anterograde amnesia”. This is surprisingly part of the film that contains some accuracy in terms of psychology. With this type of amnesia, it’s typically caused when a person has some kind of brain damage to a portion of the brain that is partially responsible for the storage of memory. The brain is essentially “stuck in time”. The brain is not able to encode new memories and store those memories. Living with anterograde amnesia would need to be hospitalized so they can be closely monitored. In this movie the character has permanent brain damage sustained from a car accident. She lost the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia (short term memory loss), however her long-term memories from before the event remain

Recollecting some of life’s experiences can be done very accurately at times where we can depict details even after a long period of time. For patient H.M. this is the exact case. Patient H.M. suffered from severe anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia patients quite often show normal memory for events that have occurred prior to the incident. Therefore, making it extremely difficult to recall or store information after the incident has occurred. H.M. had been knocked down by a bicycle at the age of 7, began to have minor seizures at the age of 10, and had major seizures after the age of 16. Patient H.M. had brain surgery in the early 1950’s around the time he had been 27 years old. The surgery had been done to alleviate severe symptoms

Losing one’s memory can be a mysterious affliction, and the causes can be quite complex. Severe memory loss is introduced in author Oliver Sacks’ collection of stories The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and lectures given by professor Jim Davies can help with understanding of some of the concepts introduced in the book. In chapter two, The Lost Mariner, the patient Jimmie is suffering from aspects of both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, which Davies explained as loss of memory of events or facts learned before an event (the event that caused the amnesia), and loss of ability to create new memories after the event, respectively. In more detail, and in relation to our book (here, the target example), retrograde amnesia would consist of any loss of memory that happened prior to an event, such as an injury or onset of disease in Jimmie’s case. Dr. Davies’ explanation of retrograde amnesia helps to understand Jimmie’s case, where in the year 1975 he is unable to recall any events after 1945. As well, the explanation of anterograde amnesia as including symptoms such as inability to form new memories, learn information or tasks, or to recall the recent past is useful when applied to Jimmie’s experience of not being able to recall events that happened even a few minutes prior. Jimmie’s suffering from both retro and anterograde amnesia, as explained by Sacks, results from Korsakov’s syndrome – a destruction of memory caused by alcoholic

In the movie 50 First Dates one of the main characters suffers from the severe condition of anterograde amnesia. The movie is about Henry Roth who is a wildlife veterinarian in Hawaii, meeting Lucy Whitmore a woman who has a short-term memory loss from an auto accident a year earlier. Henry meets Lucy at a local cafe and takes her out on a date. Henry falls in love with Lucy, but there is one problem when she awakens in the morning, she can't remember him or anything that happened that day. Henry must devise a plan to meet Lucy everyday and try to get her to fall in love with him again and again.

Case 1 tells the story of Henry Molaison (HM), a man with no memory. He lost his memory due to the operation of suctioned out the hippocampus to treat his epileptic seizures. At that time, it was not known yet that the hippocampus was essential for making memories. After operation, his seizures were significantly reduced, but Henry suffered a global amnesia. Owen et al. (2007) describes patients with global amnesia as perceptive and attentive but with a total loss of short-term memory and some trouble accessing memories of the recent past. Henry could not learn new things as he quickly forgot everything that he had learned. He could learn at a subconscious level only.

In Chapter 12 of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Mr. William Thompson suffered from an extreme case of Korsakov’s, also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (Sacks, 1985, p. 109). According to Anderson (2010), Korsakoff syndrome can cause serious damage to one’s hippocampus and temporal lobe due to habitual alcoholism, resulting in amnesia (p. 201). Similar to HM (Anderson, 2010, p. 200), Mr. Thompson suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember nothing for more than a few brief moments (Sacks, p. 109). Anderson (2010) states that anterograde amnesia results in the incapability of creating new memories, leading to fractional or absolute inability to remember something that just happened (p. 201). Yet, one’s long-term memories before the incident remain intact; such as when Mr. Thompson recognized his younger brother, Bob, as he walked by the window (Sacks, 1985, p. 112-113). Mr. Thompson and HM both suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember some long-term memories but not remember new ones, signifying that the neural makeup involved in making fresh memories are diverse from maintaining past memories (Anderson, 2010, p. 202).