Retrograde Amnesia

Prior to diagnosis the individual may show signs of forgetfulness due to an incline in memory functions. They may even show signs of a decline in reasoning and communication

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

Imagine living your life having no recollection of the past 20 seconds of anything that happens to you. Constantly feening for a way to remember, knowing that no matter how hard you try to remember a piece of something will always be forgotten. This is the case of a man named Leonard Shelby, an insurance claims investigator who lives with his wife who is diabetic in the movie Memento. This movie depicts a life that some may live every day; a life that struggles to remember certain aspects of it. In this psychological thriller, the disorder presented through the main character Leonard is called Anterograde Amnesia, better known as short-term memory. This is a disorder in which short term memories are often forgotten long before they ever have the ability to become long term memories. This is caused by the brain being affected by some sort of trauma or accident that affects the hippocampus of the brain making it very hard from that point on to remember anything other than the long-term memories that were set in your brain before any trauma. During a break in into his home Leonard was struck by a gun to the side of his head by two masked criminals which caused his short-term memory loss. Also during the incident, his wife was raped and killed by them. Leonard kills one of the criminals, but the other gets away with minimal damage. This is the last event that Leonard can fully remember thus fueling his need for revenge on whoever killed his wife. This fuel is what leads him

In the human brain, most of our memory is stored and controlled by a part of the brain located in the center that is called the hippocampus. The hippocampus is crucial because it is in charge of short term all the way to long term memory storage and damaging it can have many adverse effects on memory. The memory of a human and animals is very complex and are not perfect recordings of the past and as such, there are idiosyncrasies with it. Sometimes when people or animals try to remember something from the past, they may confuse what they are currently

In the world of psychology there are many forms of dissociative disorders. Some of these dissociative disorders have been around in the world of psychology for a long time while others have only recently been included in the field of interest. One of the more recent inclusions is Dissociative Amnesia (DA) which was formerly known as “repressed memory” has been around for a long time, but it has only really been seriously discussed in psychology journals and other publications since the mid 1980’s (Pope, et al. 2006, p. 20). When most people think of amnesia they think of it in terms of what they know from popular culture such as someone forgetting their identity by being hit on the head. This is certainly not the case with DA

The disease is a progressive disease and it ends up leading to loss of memory.

Imagine not being able to remember anything for more than a day, an hour, or even minutes. This is the life that Leonard lives every day in Memento. Leonard got his condition when he was attacked by two masked men that were raping Leonard’s wife. One of the perpetrators hit Leonard in the back of the head. Causing Leonard so smash his head into the bathroom mirror knocking him unconscious.

Throughout these readings, readers receive a better understanding of the varying effects of memory loss stemming from frontal lobe syndromes highlighting anterograde amnesia. The first patient discussed, Jimmie G, was vaguely aware of his amnestic-confabulatory syndrome. Jimmie could easily recollect his early childhood memories, however, the issue arises when he speaks of himself living in 1942 during the 70’s. He believes he is seventeen years old. His anterograde amnesia is moderate, and he is not aware of it until Dr. Sacks points it out. After doing so, Jimmie is frightened as to where he is and why he is so old now. His later memories are gone as well as the ability to recall things that had just happened. He is a man stuck in the past.

1. Concerns associated with adverse effects: • Anterograde amnesia: have been associated with anterograde amnesia. • Paradoxical reactions: including hyperactive or aggressive behavior, predominantly in adolescent/pediatric or psychiatric patients. • Suicidal ideation: various antiepileptics showed an increased risk of suicidal thoughts/behavior.

According to Pinel (2013), medial temporal lobe amnesia is amnesia or loss of memory that is associated with “bilateral damage to the medial temporal lobes” (p.478). H.M.’s case was revolutionary to the study of human memory. Prior to H.M.’s surgery, it was shown that the removal of one medial temporal lobe was effective treatment for patients with a unilateral temporal lobe focus. H.M. suffered from on average one “generalized seizure” per week and many “partial seizures” per day (Pinel, 2013, p.260). Anticonvulsant medication’s proved to be ineffective for the treatment of H.M.’s seizures (Pinel, 2013). H.M.’s doctors ran tests including an electroencephalography or EEG, in which they proposed that the H.M.’s convulsions originated from the center of the medial portions of both his left and right temporal lobes (Pinel, 2013, p.260). His doctors believes that since the removal of one medial temporal lobe was effective treatment for patients like H.M., he would benefit from removal of both medial portions of both temporal lobes (Pinel, 2013). H.M.’s surgery proved to be effective for stopping his seizures (Pinel,

Amnesia can cause many serious health problems, it could eventually lead up to brain damage. ​

First, “retrograde amnesia is the memory loss for events prior to the brain injury (Solso, Otto, & Kimberly, 2014).” According to Solso, Otto, and Kimberly, retro means old memories are being

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

I believe the main reason why patient RS has impairments in his past memories and can only hold on a few significant ones are due his insomnia in the past. Due to his lack of sleep, he has problem consolidating his memory. Memories are strengthened and consolidated during sleep in the first stage. Then, during the second stage, declarative memories are integrated and assimilated into memory networks (Stickgold and Walter 2005). Furthermore, the first stage is preferably the SWS sleep while the second stage is preferably the REM stage (2005). I suspect that RS might used to have more declarative memories and semantic memories from his childhood, college days and early married life. However, since his failure to consolidate his memories, his

Simcock and Hayne (2002) are interested in determining factors that cause childhood amnesia. More specifically, they wanted to know if a relationship exists between language acquisition and the offset childhood amnesia. They posed the question: can children translate preverbal memories into language once they develop adequate language to do so?