What is retrograde amnesia and how does memory affect?

Retrograde amnesia is the inability to remember past experiences. It is different from anterograde amnesia, which is the inability to train new memories.

Types of retrograde amnesia have different causes, including traumatic experience and traumatic cerebral lesion (TBI). These types have different symptoms and require various treatments. In some cases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, there is no remedy. For others, the prospects with therapy are more optimistic.

Symptoms of retrograde amnesia

Retrograde amnesia is characterized by the loss of information or memories acquired before the event which caused amnesia. Symptoms include:

• Have skills that you have acquired before the start of amnesia, without the memory of learning
• The inability to access memories formed before the start of amnesia
• Loss of memories before the start of amnesia
• Loss of information previously learned
• Missing information of memories or inaccuracies in the memories of an event

Types of retrograde amnesia

The main symptom of retrograde amnesia is the memory loss of past events. Symptoms depend mainly on the type of amnesia and can vary considerably from a few days to weeks or even years to decades.

Here are the types of retrograde amnesia:

• Dissociative amnesia affects your consciousness and your perception of yourself. In more serious cases, you may not remember your name, family members or entire parts of your life story. You can even create a new personal identity.
• Post-traumatic amnesia results from a brain lesion. You may not remember the event that caused your amnesia.
• Infantile amnesia is the inability to remember your first years as a baby and toddler before the age of 3 or 4. This is typical for most people and does not require medical care. Serious adverse events, such as negligence and abuses, can still have an impact on a person in the future.
• Transitional world amnesia (TGA) is a sudden and temporary memory loss that lasts up to 10 hours. As a rule, you know biographical information, such as members of your identity and your family, but no other details. The cause is unknown.

Depending on the circumstances of the person, the subtypes of amnesia can be classified as retrograde or manifest amnesia as retrograde and anterograde amnesia (the inability to train new memories).

For example, TGA is also a type of anterograde amnesia because it prevents a person from training new memories during the event. However, it can also have a short -term retrograde effect which lasts less than 24 hours.

Causes

Some main causes of memory loss include injuries, illnesses and stressful events.

• Dissociative amnesia: This stems from extremely stressful circumstances or events in the life of a person who make them dissociate.
• Post-traumatic amnesia: This results from a brain injury such as a stroke, a coma or a head trauma.
• Infantile amnesia: Many researchers think that infantile amnesia occurs due to the infant’s brain underdevelopment.
• Transitional world amnesia: Researchers are not clear about the cause. Some suggest that other psychological disorders, venous flow abnormalities (blood flow problems) or epilepsy may be to blame.

Other causes of retrograde amnesia may include:

How it is diagnosed

To diagnose retrograde amnesia, you will need to make an appointment with a health care provider. They will assess your memory (or that of a loved one) by speaking, observing the recall of past information and speaking to other members of the family of communication at home.

A health care provider can order a neuropsychological assessment, a more formal memory test type. Additional tests to identify a cause may include a physical examination and:

Treatment

There are no effective treatments or effective drugs for retrograde amnesia. Priority is generally to deal with the cause of amnesia to help people find their memories.

For example, in -depth rehabilitation may be necessary to treat memory loss linked to TBI. Or, a mental health professional can provide amnesia therapy caused by unfavorable childhood experiences (ACE).

For Alzheimer’s disease or other degenerative diseases, there is no available remedy. However, drugs like Aricept (Donepezil) are available to treat Alzheimer’s disease, which can also slow the progression of memory loss. In some cases, memory can even be restored, but only up to a point.

Some people who have retrograde amnesia find that family support or participation in support groups can help frustration of memory loss.

Prognosis

The prognosis depends considerably on the source of amnesia. In some cases, the memory loss is brief, only lasts days or weeks.

However, memory loss can last for years or even be permanent for others. With a condition like Alzheimer, memory loss can even worsen over time.

Summary

Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall or remember past experiences. Several factors can contribute, including emotional or physical trauma, infections or dementia and other medical conditions.

Memory loss can be temporary, durable or even permanent. Your health care provider will carry out several non -invasive diagnostic tests to diagnose retrograde amnesia.