[TOPIC] Amnesia

I think you can check Wikipedia for the different types. I read something once about how patients with amnesia are supposed to act as if their memory isn't going to come back. As for what causes it, a head injury is probably the most common... but I heard it can be triggered by a traumatic event... you know, where your mind is repressing things? Also... Alzheimer's causes dimentia, so there may be something there... Sorry, I don't know much about it either, but I thought I'd put my two cents in.

I suffered retrograde amnesia after a bad fall from a horse I was schooling. Cracked my helmet, but fortunately not my skull. I lost all memory of the previous two days and I've never regained them. Amnesia's typically caused by a brain injury, usually a result of head trauma. In my case, I suffered a bad fall and landed on my head. This was enough to knock me out and cause the brain injury.

I've heard of people who've recovered memories after amnesia, but there's no guarantee you'll ever get them back. The brain's ability to store and process memories is still a huge mystery to doctors, so there's no real cure or treatment. Since my amnesia wasn't too bad (two days versus two years), the doctors didn't really try to jog my memory.

As a side note, I had a trainer who took a bad fall and had to be hospitalized for nearly a month. She had amnesia and also lost the ability to walk, speak, or feed herself. All of these motor skills returned to her in about 3 weeks, but she never got back her memory (I think she lost about a week or two).

Amnesia can have various effects for individuals. If you think of times when you sat with friends or family and the coversation. How would you feel having no reference point to what they were saying you may be confused or think people are lying or even that they are playing some game with you.

You can get obsessive about noting things down in case you forget.

Heres a link to types
http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/dave/Work/PSYC1033/Amnesia.htm

Eliot
Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.
Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm writing about amnesia also. My character loses approximately the last two years. She remembers everything about her life up to two years ago - her name, her address, her family, etc., but does not know that she is recenlty divorced or has a one-year-old baby.

I once met a girl, years ago, who had lost something like 10 or 15 years, and her friends were re-introducing her to everyone she'd known. I'm having some difficulty finding information on losing large blocks of time like that, though, and what that type of amnesia is called.

I've been trying to find out the same thing. There are a few different types, but the information I found was limited to basic information, which was not very helpful. One of the aspects of amnesia that I have heard of is where some people can forget any personal information, but remember how to count and stuff like that and I was intrigued. I have yet to find any helpful information explaining what I want to know about it. One of the aspects I'm mainly trying to find out is if you had special
training and then got amnesia, would you forget that training.

What if it was a way of life something you did everyday, would you have it on instinct?

Obviously you need to spend some time watching The Bourne Identity. Jason Bourne can remember how to make coffee, count, speak in like ten different languages, etc, but he doesn't remember his name or anything about him or his life before he woke up. He had some special combat training, which he completely remembered. Look up what kind he has, just search The Bourne Identity on wikipedia and it says what he has.