DA is not caused by underlying medical problems but primarily from stress caused by traumatic events like war, abuse, accidents or disasters that were either experienced or witnessed. The impairment may be thematic, that is affecting a specific area of the patient's life or general, affecting a large part of their identity. It is a form of memory loss where one cannot remember important information about their life. Dissociative Amnesia (DA) formerly known as pychogenic amnesia, belongs to a group of conditions referred to as dissociative disorders.It may result in decreased attention and inaccurate perception. Anterograde Amnesia (AA) is described as the inability to form new memories.Areas of the brain damaged in RA are the temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex. Memory recall can be achieved in these patients by exposing them to important elements or articles from the past. Retrograde Amnesia (RA) is the partial or total loss of memories acquired before onset of the amnesia.Īmnesia can have profound incapacitating effects on individuals, affecting their quality of life and leaving them dependent on others. On the other hand, amnesia caused by psychological factors, otherwise known as functional amnesia: is not as common as neurological amnesia, is a psychiatric disorder with no known underlying damage to a brain structure and commonly results from emotional trauma. It is associated with damage to the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes. memory dealing with conscious knowledge of facts and events, while non-declarative memory (dealing with knowledge unconsciously acquired) is preserved. Amnesia due to neurological factors (also known as neurological amnesia) is characterized by a loss of declarative memory i.e. It can result broadly from psychological or neurological factors. Simply defined as the profound loss of memory, amnesia involves a difficulty in learning new information or remembering past events.

Anterograde vs retrograde amnesia