


The recovery is often gradual, the memory slowly reclaiming isolated events while others are still missing. In another form, only certain isolated events are lost to memory.Īmnesia victims usually have a good chance of recovery if there is no irreparable brain damage. When amnesia results from a single physical or psychologic incident, such as a concussion suffered in an accident or a severe emotional shock, the victim may forget only the incident itself the victim may be unable to recall events occurring before or after the incident or the order of events may be confused, with recent events imputed to the past and past events to recent times. Rarely is the memory completely obliterated. Criterion A notes that dissociative amnesia most often consists of localized or selective amnesia for a specific event or events or generalized amnesia for. The technical term for this is repression. Psychologic factors may also cause amnesia a shocking or unacceptable situation may be too painful to remember, and the situation is then retained only in the subconscious mind. Amnesia is usually the result of physical damage to areas of the brain from injury, disease, or alcoholism. Dissociative amnesia is not normal forgetting, like misplacing keys or forgetting the name of someone you met once or twice. While very frightening for the patient, transient global amnesia generally has an excellent prognosis for recovery. In severe attacks, a person is completely disoriented and may experience retrograde amnesia that extends back several years. Attacks can be as brief as 30-60 minutes or can last up to 24 hours. In most instances, the memories being blocked out are tied to significant trauma. For instance, you might not remember details about a particular circumscribed period of time. (A transient ischemic attack, sometimes called "a small stroke," occurs when a blockage in an artery temporarily blocks off blood supply to part of the brain.) A victim experiences sudden confusion and forgetfulness. Localized amnesia, as the name might imply, affects a specific area of a person’s life. This type of amnesia has no consistently identifiable cause, but researchers have suggested that migraines or transient ischemic attacks may be the trigger.

In some ways, this form of amnesia is the opposite of anterograde amnesia: the victim can recall events that occurred after a trauma, but cannot remember previously familiar information or the events preceding the trauma. Recent experiences and short-term memory disappear, but victims can recall events prior to the trauma with clarity. a few hours after traumatic event) most common selective amnesia. This form of amnesia follows brain trauma and is characterized by the inability to remember new information. no recall for a specific period of time (e.g.
