From Wikipedia:
Those who have theoretically pure anterograde amnesia are still able to access memories formed before its onset, but they exist in a transient world where anything beyond their immediate attention span disappears from their consciousness permanently. However, theoretically pure anterograde amnesia rarely surfaces: in reality, long-term cases nearly always occur with some degree of retrograde amnesia.
Anterograde amnesia is often informally called “short-term memory loss”, conjuring the idea, as in the movie Memento, that the problem lies with the short-term memory. For this reason, formal (correct technical or scientific) usage demands the term anterograde amnesia, since the condition is a deficit not in short-term memory but in long-term encoding.
Here’s a segment from a BBC Documentary about Clive Wearing, a person who suffers from Anterograde Amnesia.
Clive Wearing has a neurological disorder called Anterograde Amnesia which is a condition that doesn’t allow new memories to transfer into long-term memory. This means that he will never remember anything since his incident, similarly to the movie Memento.
Clive was an accomplished pianist in the 80s’, and fortunately can still play the piano flawlessly. He only remembers his wife, and anything else to him is new information, even if it was presented to him once before.
Comments
12 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.I saw that doc, really sad the poor guy doesn’t remember his wife.
But he remember his wife…. He just thinks that he hasn’t seen her in a long time so everytime she says hi he greets her like she just came back from a trip.
Actually, in another film from a few years ago, he is able to remember a few details from recent current events, and he is able to go to a cupboard to get out some coffee, so there are a few things that get into his memory, but obviously very little.
Did they say what caused this problem for him?
I haven’t seen Memento, but I’m familiar with 50 First Dates and I’ve seen Finding Nemo. Short-term memory loss is becoming quite the plot device.
@miss cellania Memento is great, worth the rental
but the real life part would really, really suck.
That woman is a true saint. It’s people like that who I admire. I can’t imagine just how hard it must be to see the one you love with such a disorder, and how many obstacles that disorder must create, and yet continuing to care for him and take care of him. People like that show that there is some good in the world.
i love how happy he is to see her every time she walks into a room
i bet that never gets old for her either
A concept like that really blows my mind. Even though he remembers his wife, surely he must get confused that she looks older. I wonder what he thinks when he looks in the mirror. And yeah, I’d love to know what brought it all on.
I read a recent article on damninteresting.com on this subject.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=861
CPR, it seems like he thinks he’s been unconscious for years, so it’s not that his wife’s been away, but that HE’S been away. Such a mental structure would serve to explain both his aging and his wife’s.
I do think it’s sweet how warmly he greets her, and how much he obviously loves her. And how much she obviously loves him, to stick with him year after year like that.
so memories exists but he’s not able to use them or things are not stored in his brain?
numbers matter
/anne_nomrowski/2273432419/ – /iain/2271758692/ –
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