Head injury and memory loss

Why does head injury cause memory loss? How does head injury cause memory loss? Can head trauma cause memory loss? Can a concussion cause memory loss?

There are two chief types of memory loss or amnesia which can affect a person who has experienced a head injury.

These are either retrograde or anterior grade amnesia. Retrograde Amnesia: It involves damage to memories which formed prior to the accident. This could only involve the actual accident or trauma , so a person is unable to recall the events which led to his or her ordeal. The loss of memory from the moment of TBI onward is called post-traumatic amnesia. It can last from a few minutes to several weeks or months, depending on the severity of brain injury.

If you can’t remember the events of your TBI , you likely never will. Some head-injured patients may suffer from vision-related challenges and short-term memory loss or confusion for years.

They may never know they have a disruption in their connections among sensory systems, even when examined by traditional eye doctors. Stress can also cause memory loss , and after a stressful event, sometimes short-term memory can be lost. Concussion and Brain Injury – Short Term Memory Loss Cause A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that is caused by a blow to the head , a fall, or another injury that physically shakes or quickly rotates the brain inside the skull. This means the brain has not stored the memory of the incident.

Afterwar the brain may not store other recent memories. This lack of memory from the time the brain was injured is called post-traumatic amnesia. This type of memory loss can persist for weeks or months. Brain injury and brain diseases are frequently associated with memory loss. In many cases, the memory loss is short-term.

However, in more severe in brain diseases that are progressive, long-term memory is also affected. On this page we will briefly mention brain injury and some of the diseases that cause memory loss. In general, the smaller the degree of retrograde amnesia, the less significant the head injury. Another form of memory loss is called anterior grade amnesia.

In this case, events FOLLOWING the accident have been erased. A good part of that is due to the brain injury itself.

Complex systems in the brain are injured. A concussion is a minor form of brain injury which typically causes a range of symptoms such as headache, fatigue, and memory loss. Most of the time, the treatment of concussion is support, as the brain will slowly heal itself over time, although it may take weeks for the symptoms, such as the memory problems you are reporting, to resolve completely. Memory loss after a head injury indicates the person may have suffered damage to the temporal lobe of the brain.

The vast majority of people suffering memory loss will show steady improvement over time. Stroke or Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA) is another brain injury that is a major cause of memory loss. A CVA is often called a brain attack.

CVA can be ischemic or hemorrhagic. Ischemic strokes are cause when an object restricts blood flow to a certain part of the brain. There can be gradual improvement in the memory over time. This can be permanent or temporary (mini-stroke). Physical Trauma and Memory Loss Physical trauma can greatly affect your memory, especially if brain damage occurs as a result of the injury.

Physical trauma such as a head injury or stroke can damage the brain and impair a person’s ability to process information and store information, the main functions of memory. Short-term memory loss Memory problems can occur with most brain disorders. However they are particularly common with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Trauma increases the chance of bony protrusions inside the skull causing damage to parts of the brain responsible for memory.

Certain functions, however, such as memory , language, and information processing, are lodged in multiple areas of the brain and are almost always affected by any serious injury. Later in this section, I list the more common impairments of a serious brain injury , divided into the six categories described above.