There are two ways that scientists talk about amnesia. First, amnesia can happen alongside other problems. For example, there are some diseases and injuries that can cause damage to the hippocampus and cause memory loss. These include Alzheimer's disease and traumatic brain injury. Both of these conditions can cause memory loss, but they usually also cause other problems for a person's ability to think. For example, a person with Alzheimer's disease or traumatic brain injury might have difficulty planning for the day or making good decisions. So, when people with Alzheimer's disease or traumatic brain injury have memory loss, we say that they have amnesia as one of their symptoms. People can have different degrees of amnesia as a symptom, from mild memory problems to severe memory problems. Having amnesia as part of a large set of problems is fairly common. But amnesia can also occur by itself, without other problems.

License information: CC BY 4.0
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2018.00045