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Types of Memory Loss

Cognition controls a person's ability to learn and use language, follow directions and remember facts. When memory loss occurs, it directly affects a person's cognition, impairing her ability to recall information she has previously learned. Different types of memory loss are most commonly caused by traumatic events, strokes and aging.

  1. Dementia

    • Dementia patients have trouble remembering to do routine tasks they had previously done without incidents, such as paying bills. They are easily confused. Sometimes a person with dementia will be spotted at a location in close proximity to his home but cannot remember how he got from home to that location. Dementia is progressively debilitating. Alzheimer's disease is a severe form of dementia.

    Frontotemporal Dementia

    • Frontotemporal dementia is a rare memory loss disorder. This condition affects the frontal and temporal areas of the brain, each of which actively shrinks over time. Our left frontal lobe controls our verbal abilities while the right lobe controls non-verbal skills, personalities, behaviors and impulses.

      Injury to temporal lobes affects attention span, long-term memory, as well as aural and visual perception. In addition, it affects our ability to form words and to understand what others are saying. Depending on the affected area in diagnosed frontotemporal dementia patients, the severity of memory loss is varied.

    Amnesia

    • People with amnesia are subject to forgetting facts, events and specific past experiences, though acquired and learned skills remain intact. A person who is living with amnesia will not forget how to ride a bicycle or drive a car. However, she may have trouble remembering her own name or birthday.

    Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia

    • People who experience anterograde amnesia can recall things from their distant past, but they may forget events that took place within the day or week before.

      Retrograde amnesia patients lose their ability to recall the majority of facts, events and names of people they know that happened prior to a traumatic experience. Christina Applegate's character in the TV series "Samantha Who?" suffered from retrograde amnesia after a car accident induced a coma. After she awoke, she could not remember any events that happened prior to her accident.

    Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)

    • People who are diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment have experienced documented incidents of memory loss. However, unlike dementia, these memory lapses do not impair them from completing routine daily life tasks.

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