Anterograde Amnesia
Retrograde amnesia can be distinguished from anterograde amnesia, which is a memory gap for subsequent events, i.e. amnesia that is forward in time. The affected person can no longer save new content and cannot retain the thoughts after the beginning of the triggering event or can only retain them for a very short time. In this case, the ability to remember or learn new tasks is, so to speak, strongly limited. Overall, anterograde amnesia is more frequently observed, but both forms of amnesia often coexist simultaneously. For example, after a trauma with loss of consciousness, a person does not remember what happened after the event, nor is he able to remember new content after awakening.
Korsakov Syndrome
The Korsakow syndrome is a special form of amnesia, which was previously observed in alcoholics. Nowadays, however, it has been recognized that, in addition to chronic alcohol consumption, other triggers for Korsakov’s syndrome may be possible, such as a cerebral hemorrhage, craniocerebral trauma or oxygen deficiency. The main reason for this amnesia is a lack of thiamine (vitamin B1), which is involved in important processes in the human body, including nerve cells.
Therefore, if the supply is reduced, important brain structures can be destroyed, especially the mammillary body, a part of the so-called limbic system, which plays an important role in learning and thinking processes. This results in a deteriorated ability to remember new content, often combined with retrograde amnesia. Typical for this clinical picture is the so-called confabulation, a memory distortion. Here, spontaneous thoughts or ideas are mistakenly simply assumed to be correct and used instead of the memory gaps.
Treatment/Therapy
First, the therapy of retrograde amnesia consists of treating the actual cause. If there is another disease, such as epilepsy, dementia, inflammation or stroke, it should be treated accordingly.Furthermore, psychotherapy should be considered in case of extreme mental stress caused by the memory gaps. The most important and effective therapy is probably the neuropsychological approach.
Here the affected person is taught various learning strategies in an intensive training, with which the memory performance can be improved. In order to facilitate the patient’s everyday life, the use of external memory aids is also recommended. This means, for example, that important things are noted down on a notepad or smartphone so that they are not forgotten.
Finally, memory performance can be influenced by certain medications. However, their use should be weighed up individually for each case and decided with a specialist, because an influence has only been examined after craniocerebral trauma. Thus, drugs such as donepezil or methylphenidate are recommended off-label, i.e. these drugs are actually used for other diseases. Furthermore, rivastigmine or physostigmine are also used, both of which increase the concentration of the neurotransmitter (substances for signal transmission in the nervous system) acetylcholine.
