Retrograde Amnesia And Memory Loss

* Forgetfulness, maybe forgetting names of people that you have been in contact with every day, or forgetting what you did just hours or days ago.

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

People with Alzheimer disease also develop deposits of protein and fibre that prevent the cells from working properly. When this happens, the cells can't send the right signals to other parts of the brain. Over time, brain cells affected by Alzheimer also begin to shrink and denature.

The diagnosis for Alzheimer’s is far from simple. Alzheimer’s begins when a patient reaches the final step of Dementia. There are many disorders that can impact the cause of Alzheimer’s. Neurological disorders include strokes, blood clots, and brain tumors that can be related to dementia. Psychiatric disorders also affect the way Alzheimer’s develops. Elderly people with forms of depression may show even earlier signs of Alzheimer’s such as impaired thinking. Lastly, Trauma can be a factor in Alzheimer patients. Head injuries can cause blood clots in and around the brain (Medicine).

Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory and it is not a normal part of aging, “Although the greatest risk factor is increasing age” (Alzheimer’s Association). Even though our memory begins to deteriorate when we are growing older we don’t necessarily forget we get the “tip of the tongue” effect where we are ale to recollect our memories unlike those with Alzheimer’s.

     Dementia, memory loss, and cognitive breakdown are some of the major signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The disease damages brain cells, which in turn, impairs the memory and leads to loss of memory and the ability to perform tasks. The slow elimination of cells weakens the brain’s ability to remember things, perform normal

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

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

Anterograde amnesia is a common and distinguished neurological disorder in the psychological and neurobiological field. Media depictions of this neuropsychological disorder are not as common as other forms of amnesia, but it is still incorrectly portrayed. Anterograde amnesia refers to the inability to retain new information, while still having intact memories that occurred before brain damage (Carlson, 2014). There have been several studies that focus on anterograde amnesia and its diagnostic criteria, course, associated features, assessment, etiology, underling neurobiological mechanisms, treatments, and future research.

A couple of articles were able to explain more about anterograde amnesia. One of those articles was “Widespread cognitive impairment in psychogenic anterograde amnesia”. The article explains the experiments scientists are doing to try and find out what causes anterograde amnesia. According to the article “Retrograde psychogenic amnesia is common but anterograde psychogenic amnesia is rare” (cite). In order to attain anterograde psychogenic amnesia the person needs to have widespread cognitive impairment. Psychological stress can put a lot of strain on the body and brain. Sometimes stress even can cause people to break down. In order to explain a cause of anterograde amnesia scientist studied a 38-year-old man.

Memory loss in elderly people is the fourth leading cause of death in elderly people; there are around 4 to 5 million Americans and more than 8 million people all over the world have been suffering from this disease. So, what is dementia in the elderly people? The disease is called Alzheimer's disease (AD) which is a disorder characterized by memory impairment and yet disorders in reasoning, planning, speaking, and understanding.

“Anterograde amnesia is the inability to create new memories; long-term memories from before the event typically remain intact. However, memories that were not fully consolidated from before the event may also be lost.” [8] Anterograde amnesia affects the short term memory of a person more than their long-term memory. “Your long-term memory, is everything you can remember that did not happen today. This ranges from stuff that happened when you were three to stuff that happened yesterday. Your short-term memory includes things that happened today. The change from STM to LTM happens while you sleep. Long-term memory is often divided into three categories by psychologists. They are procedural, semantic and episodic. Anterograde amnesia only impairs your formation of new episodic memories.” [23] Our short term memory 2 seems to be between 15 and 30 seconds.” [25] Repetition of what is in our short-term memory is what eventually leads to

Amnesia is very rare but can be factored into memory loss in many different ways. This Article on Amnesia states, “Some types of stroke, concussive injury, chronic alcoholism, disruption of oxygen supply, or certain kinds of

Advancing age is commonly associated with loss of memory. The inability to maintain both short term and long term memory is serious. Learning new things or remembering familiar words and names can be quite daunting.

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.