First, I don't understand why people are referring to this as a "retrograde amnesia." Wouldn't it be better described as dissociative amnesia or fugue state?
As for the similarities to Clive Wearing, I think they are more apparent than real. Clive did NOT lose all "all of his former memories." From the video it is obvious that he remembers his wife. It is also obvious that he remembers at least one of his former colleagues. In the scene where he enters the choral practice room, he greets one of the singers with a kiss and clearly seems to recognize her. They do note that "at one point" he forgot his daughter's name but that was likely due to a general state of confusion at the height of the encephalitis and the implication was that this bit of amnesia was only temporary. Ed Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D. Department of Psychology West Chester University of Pennsylvania ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Husband, father, grandfather, biopsychologist, & bluegrass fiddler...... in approximate order of importance. Subject: Re: Re:Retrograde Amnesia From: "Joan Warmbold" <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:44:27 -0500 (CDT) X-Message-Number: 19 Hmmm, I think you folks are making premature conclusions and believe, to the contrary, that this is a plausible case. First, his head injury did not appear to be mild but fairly severe. Relative to questioning his ability to still have language skills, a perfect analogy is Clive Wearing who lost almost all of his former memories but can still play the piano as well as lead a choral group at the same superb skill level he exhibited before he lost most of his memories. The doctors also provided a fairly logical explanation of how the blood flow in his brain has been severely disrupted and that such could help explain his extensive memory loss. As we all know, there are different types of memories and he appears to have lost all of his episodic/semantic memories but such does not mean he could not have have retained his more implicit memories of what objects are, such as chairs, tables and rice. And loss of former memories more than a few hours can't be all that rare. I had two students who experienced fairly extensive retrograde amnesia due to head trauma, one fellow who lost all of his high school memories and another who had lost the last 5 years of his life. Until we all know more about his medical records and the extent of the brain trauma, it seems quite unreasonable to question the authenticity of his memory loss due based on the lawsuit against his former employer. I doubt that a person would need to exhibit total retrograde memory loss to have grounds for a law suit that resulted in fairly serious brain injury. Until we have more of the facts, I feel it is quite unjustified to accuse this man of "faking it" for ulterior motives. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=2157 or send a blank email to leave-2157-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
