Post-Traumatic Amnesia Research Paper

After head injuries many people suffer a memory loss of some sort and that is
called Post-Traumatic Amnesia or Post-Traumatic Confusion. There are many kinds of
amnesia and many are associated with damage to the hippocampus and relate to the
area of the brain that are used to encode, store, and retrieve memories. Damage to the
pathways may cause the memories to not be encoded properly or not at all. In bad
cases, long-term memory loss may occur because the pathways are badly damaged
(Mastin, 2010).

Post-Traumatic Amnesia (Russell, 1932) occurs after a period of

unconsciousness when the injured person is conscious and awake, but is behaving or
talking in a different way or uncharacteristic manner. It is shown to occur for ranging
periods of time from hours to weeks, depending on the severity of the situation. 45% of
people with Post Traumatic Amnesia experienced memory loss for longer than a month
after their injury (Mastin, 2010). Post-Traumatic Amnesia is often confused by Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because the event of injury is often particularly
stressful but patients of PTA often regain there memory of the event after around a
month. Post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) has a wide array of symptoms occurring to most
patients are confusion, agitation, uncharacteristic behaviours such as violence,
aggression, etc., tendency to wander, and the inability to recognize familiar people
(Headway, 2017). The symptoms of PTA vary drastically between patients; the most
common symptoms are the sudden inability to remember past experiences or personal
information, and some people appear to be severely depressed or anxious (Headway,
2017).

In case studies researched on Post Traumatic Amnesia, it is more often than not
confused by PTSD. Carolyn A. Scott did a case study on PTA, looking into how the
severity of trauma is defined an how it effected a sample. It is believed that Post
Traumatic Confusion (PTA) is a better way to define what individuals experience while
recovering after trauma (Scott, 2016). It is noted that individuals in PTC may appear to
focus during therapy one day but completely unable to do the same thing the next day;
this is to be expected throughout the recovery period. In the case study, the sample was
a 45 year old man, Mr. Jones, who was in a serious car crash leaving him with a
fractured leg, many broken ribs, cuts and bruising around his face. After imaging was
done on his head, it was discovered he had a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) with
subarachnoid hemorrhage, intracranial hemorrhage, and hemorrhagic contusions in
both frontal lobes and the left temporal lobe. Jones was able to identify his name and
birthday but not his age; was also able to identify the month and time but not the month
or year. Remaining confused to how he was injured, he soon became agitated and
easily irritated. During his recovery, Jones had disturbed sleep and remained a lacking
of attention in therapy and conversations. After working daily with his physician,
medications were reviewed to minimize any negative side effects that they may have on
cognition. Family members and Mr. Jones were provided with education about brain
injury and recovery from injury. After 67 days, Mr. Jones had settled his confusion, with
still recovery time in the future, he was able to become an outpatient and get settled at
home once again.

Post-Traumatic amnesia has no specific ways to return back to normal after a

brain trauma. There are many options that doctors will make to ensure the patient is on
the road back to their normal selves, particularly because there are no medications for
PTA, so recovering in alternative ways is vital. The most common rehab options are
Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Psychotherapy, meditation and other relaxation
practices, and clinical hypnosis for particularly bad cases of trauma (Im, 2010) . The
number one recommendation to patients struggling with PTA is to avoid anything that
will make the patient severely stressed, that being said, many people end up taking time
off work to care for their trauma properly.

Peoples brains encode, store, and retrieve memories and without those tasks
memories are non-existent; most people who experience TBIs have to work extremely
hard to gain their brain strength back to normal. Post-Traumatic Amnesia or Post-
Traumatic Confusion makes many people very frustrated and struggle with
uncharacteristic behaviours that they do not know how to deal with. Brain injuries will
often take 6 months to 2 years to heal properly and go back to normal (Novack and
Bushnik). More research about this topic needs to be done in the future to create more
understanding of post traumatic injuries and the healing processes of it all. More
research will help people heal first hand from their own injuries or help other people in
their lives.

Citations:
Headway (2017). Post-Traumatic Amnesia. https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-
injury/individuals/eects-of-brain-injury/post-traumatic-amnesia/

Im, Brian. (2010). The Continuum of Rehabilitation for Persons with Traumatic Brain
Injury. http://www.webmd.com/brain/features/traumatic-brain-injury-rehabilitation#1

Mastin, Luke (2010). Post-Traumatic Amnesia. http://www.human-memory.net/

disorders_traumatic.html

Novack, Thomas and Bushnik, Tamara. (2002). Understanding TBI: Part 3 - The
Recovery Process. http://www.msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/Understanding-TBI/The-
Recovery-Process-For-Traumatic-Brain-Injury

Russell, W.R. (1932). Cerebral involvement in head injury: a study based on the
examination of two hundred cases. Brain.

Scott, Carolyn A.(2016). Post-Traumatic Amnesia. https://www.rainbowrehab.com/

post-traumatic-amnesia/