What is short term memory loss?

Answer 1

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In general Memory loss is referred to as Amnesia, is an abnormal degree of forgetfulness and/or inability to recall past events. Depending on the cause, memory loss may have either a sudden or gradual onset, and memory loss may be permanent or temporary. Memory loss may be limited to the inability to recall recent events, events from the distant past, or a combination of both.

Memory loss has multiple causes including a number of chronic medical and psychological conditions, trauma, medications, drug or alcohol abuse, and infections.

Answer for your question:

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is "one of the most striking syndromes in clinical neurology" whose key defining characteristic is temporary but almost total disruption of short-term memory with a range of problems accessing older memories. A person in a state of TGA exhibits no other signs of impaired cognitive functioning but recalls only the last few moments of consciousness plus deeply-encoded facts of the individual's past, such as his or her own name.

A person having an attack of TGA has almost no capacity to establish new memories, but generally appears otherwise mentally alert and lucid, possessing full knowledge of self-identity and identity of close family, and maintaining intact perceptual skills and a wide repertoire of complex learned behavior. The individual simply cannot recall anything that happened outside the last few minutes, while memory for more temporally distant events may or may not be largely intact. This onset of TGA is generally fairly rapid, and its duration varies but generally lasts between 2 to 8 hours. A person experiencing TGA typically has memory only of the past few minutes or less, and cannot retain new information beyond that period of time. One of its bizarre features is perseverance, in which the victim of an attack faithfully and methodically repeats statements or questions, complete with profoundly identical intonation and gestures "as if a fragment of a sound track is being repeatedly rerun."

Other types of Amnesia includes ... Post-traumatic amnesia, Dissociative amnesia, Lacunar amnesia, Childhood amnesia, Source amnesia, Memory distrust syndrome, Blackout phenomenon, Korsakoff's syndrome, Drug-induced amnesia, Prosopamnesia, Situation-Specific amnesia etc.

Answer 2

Short term memory loss is where a patient can't remember things that happened recently but can remember things and people from years ago.