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Let's talk about Amnesia

  
 
Warewullf
20:32 / 11.11.02
I've read the websites, done what research I could and now I want to know some specifics so I'd appreciate your input. I suspect Ganesh will know a bit about this.

So, you have amnesia, you forget your name. What else? Do you forget the name of cutlery? Do you remeber street names? Do you remember being on the street? Do you remember movie stars? Film titles? Colours? Countries? What about relegious festivals? Is Christmas an entirey new experience?

I realise that there are different "levels" of Amnesia, but these are just a few questions that came to mind.

(It's for a story, by the way.)
 
 
jUne, a sunshiny month
13:20 / 12.11.02
about amnesia ? well, so there's this.. uh.... well, i think i cannot remember.
 
 
jUne, a sunshiny month
13:21 / 12.11.02
it must be something like this funny story i forgot, about boomerang.
but it will come back...

(sorry, l & g, i'm quite tired today...)
 
 
Linus Dunce
13:34 / 12.11.02
Then there's the one about the postage stamp ... damn, it's on the tip of my tongue ...
 
 
The Natural Way
14:01 / 12.11.02
I had mild amnesia once (after being knocked out at school) and I forgot the day, the month and the time. It was really fucked. A friend went down on the rugby pitch and he forgot everything: his name, his family, his girlfriend....luckily it only lasted a couple of hours. I'm sure, as with everything, there are degrees.... I would also assume that "memory" as a concept is a fuzzy, many headed beast.
 
 
Warewullf
20:40 / 12.11.02
Thanks, Runx. But did you forget what month is was, or did you forget what the actual words meant? Were you, like, "What the hell does 'August' mean?!?"
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
20:49 / 12.11.02
As I've mentioned in my whinge thread, one of the possible side-effects of my medication is amnesia. However, my doctor suggested that due to only having had one episode, it was more likely to be a pyschological response, a 'blocking'/'burying' of something that my pysche couldn't process/admit to/cope with. I guess, a kind of traumatic reaction.

Thought I'd chuck that in. In cases where the person is undergoing severe stress, or where they maybe emotional/mental issues, it might be difficult to tell what is 'pure' amnesia. Thought that might be an interesting slant...
 
 
Mourne Kransky
21:27 / 12.11.02
Ganesh being out tonight, holding the NHS together singlehandledly, I looked about online and found this site with a list of types of amnesia, Warewulf: bit technical, though.

Edited by me version:
Categories of amnesia -

retrograde (amnesia for events that happened before an illness, injury, or cerebral degenerative disease of the brain),

anterograde (inability to create new memories after illness, injury, or degeneration),

global (amnesia for information related to all sensory channels and past times), no memory left at all - bit of a bugger, that one...

modality specific (amnesia for events processed by a single sensory channel, eg, an agnosia or loss of ability to recognize objects, people, sounds, shapes, or smells)

transient (fleeting amnesia, as occurs after brain trauma, like wot runx had above.

stable (fixed, as occurs after a serious event such as a cardiac arrest),

or progressive (as occurs with degenerative dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease).

There's also -
benign senescent forgetfulness where many older people gradually develop noticeable problems with memory, first for names, then for events, and occasionally for spatial relationships. This is
common and has no proven relationship to dementia, although some similarities are hard to overlook.

The most common causes of severe, irreversible memory loss are

1. degenerative dementias,
2. severe brain damage through injury, lack of oxygen or poor blood supply,
3. alcohol-related (because of nutritional deficiency),
and
4. various drug intoxications (eg, chronic solvent sniffing).

Any underlying cause must be treated. However, most patients with acute acquired amnesia improve spontaneously. For those who do not, no specific measures can hasten the process or improve the outcome.

There's also the brief, transient amnesia for concurrent events that can follow the ingestion of large amounts of alcohol, moderately large sedative doses of barbiturates, several street drugs, or sometimes relatively small doses of benzodiazepines. This is selectively retrograde, relates specifically to events that occurred while the person was under the influence of the drug, produces no confusion, and only happens again if similar amounts of the drugs are ingested.

The most common kind in fiction is -
FACTITIOUS or PSYCHOGENIC AMNESIA where recent or remote recall seems impaired, usually in recognizable ways: the amnesia tends to be greatest for emotional crises, affects remote memories as much as or more than recent ones, and sometimes includes a professed lack of self-recognition.

In contrast, organic memory loss involves disorientation that is worse for time; less for place, persons, and emotionally charged issues; and, except in delirium, never for self.

Didn't mean to turn that into a seminar there but hope the information is of some use. Apparently my inability to find my specs for a whole day last weekend is due to an early case of benign senescent forgetfulness then. What a relief, thought I was going to have to give up the glue-sniffing. It could be the alcohol, mind...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:47 / 12.11.02
Warewulf have you been watching Neighbours? Susan Kennedy definitely had an orgasm memory moment over the washing up the other day.
 
 
Ganesh
21:51 / 12.11.02
Well, ZoCher's saved me the hassle of looking all that up. I'd add only that the weirder and more specific types of amnesia result from rather freakish injuries to discrete nuclei of the brain.

What might work better, Warewullf, would be for you to say (here or via PM) what amnesic effects are important to your story, and I'll tell you how 'realistic' they are.
 
 
Warewullf
22:07 / 13.11.02
Cheers ZoCher! Ye're a star!

Janina: Haven't seen it but sounds odd!

Ganesh: I've decided to just go with the basic "no idea who she is" thing. The lead character does go to her apartment, though, and doesn't recognise her belongings or, indeed, her apartment. After a car crash.
 
  
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