Amnesia Is A Critical Health Issue

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

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is an autobiography by Susannah Cahalan. There were many psychological issues in the book; some were paranoia, seizures, hallucinations, memory loss, bipolar disorder, and Capgras syndrome. These were all effects of anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis, which causes severe inflammation in the brain. Autoantibodies attack its own NMDA receptors, which control electrical impulses in the brain. Susannah’s issues disappeared during and after her recovery.

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.

Memory is defined as “the mental capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information” (American Psychological Association, 2002). It is a part of the means by which humans function. The process of forming and recalling memories involves various complex neurological processes and disruptions to these processes can result in loss of memory or the inability to form new memories. Amnesia is a memory disorder, in which, due to trauma or a head injury, certain parts of the memory is inaccessible. The two main types of amnesia are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia refers to the inability to create new memories (Mastin, 2010). “Retrograde

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

Transient global amnesia is a condition in which a person experiences a sudden temporary incident of memory loss that cannot be explained by another neurological condition like a stroke or epilepsy. It hinders the ability to recall recent events, leaving the person unaware of where they are or how they got there. Additionally, they might not remember what is happening in the present moment. They could forget answers that were given to recent questions or be unable to recall events that occurred at a specific time.

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

About three months ago, during the summer, I was living a very unhealthy lifetsyle. For about a week I felt like I wasn't remembering things that should have been easily known. During normal daily activites such as work, I would tend to forget things that would have been easy to remember any other day. I've been working as a deilvry driver at a pizzeria now for close to 2 years, and I know the neighborhood extremly well. However, during this time, I was starting to forget items at the pizzeria such as sodas or where streets were, that I knew extremly well. It is for these reasons that I feel like I was experiecing symptoms of disaciative amnesia

I am using the example of the original Bourne Trilogy, more specifically the first movie, the Bourne Identity. At the very start of the movie Jason Bourne, the protagonist, is shot in the head and almost drowns. Then when he recovers he remembers nothing from his past. This is most likely an example of retrograde amnesia due to damage to temporal lobes and the hippocampus. This can cause loss of memories, but retention of specific motor skills and instincts. Later this is shown true as the movie progresses and Bourne has amazing skills in combat, driving, and speaking multiple languages. These actions are examples of procedural memory, which are commonly kept for victims of amnesia.

A fundamental aspect of human memory is that the more time elapsed since an event, the fainter the memory becomes. This has been shown to be true on a relatively linear scale with the exception of our first three to four years of life (Fitzgerald, 1991). It is even common for adults not to have any memory before the age of six or seven. The absence of memory in these first years has sparked much interest as to how and why it happens. Ever since Freud (1916/1963) first popularized the phenomenon there have been many questions and few robust empirical studies. Childhood amnesia is defined as the period of life from which no events are remembered (Usher & Neisser, 1993) beginning at birth and ending at the onset of your

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.

Amnesia is a diagnosis usually given to people who suffered from head trauma, various diseases, and psychological or emotional trauma. Amnesia can be a long term or short term issue. There are multiple types of amnesias, I will be focusing on psychogenic amnesia.

In this chapter, we talked about memories and how there are two types of amnesia. Retrograde and anterograde amnesia, the first is the most common while the second is the most rare to happen and impossible to get rid of. Our memories are usually precious to us, they are a part of us that have shaped our personality through the years, and I know that many of us would probably be unable to go back to our usual self without them. However, as precious as our past memories are, they aren’t as important as the present or the future. In my case, I believe that our past will never fulfill us as much as the present can. As much as it helps our personality, having our past memories but being unable to make new memories would be extremely frustrating to me. My past memories, as much as I cherish them, don’t hold enough to be able to make me happy my whole life. Knowing only the past, without a clue about what’s going on in the present wouldn’t only

Many films depict a protagonist suffering from amnesia which makes them incapable of doing to do day-to-day activities while struggling to find their purpose, but rarely do these films portray people who suffer from such conditions accurately. These conditions are used to create suspenseful films which makes it easier for filmmakers to intrigue viewers to the theatres. Similarly, Ghajini (Mantena, Aravind & Murugadoss, 2008) a film which is centered around a character named Sanjay Singhania, who suffers from anterograde amnesia as a result of brain injury after being hit on the head with an iron rod (Mantena, Aravind & Murugadoss, 2008). The film follows him on his journey to take revenge of his girlfriend’s murder, while struggling with his inability to create new memories (Mantena, Aravind & Murugadoss, 2008). Films tend to glamorize conditions such as anterograde amnesia and Ghajini (Mantena, Aravind &