Common Causes Of Amnesia

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy gets a bad reputation from movies that dramatize it, but it is actually recognized as a very effective treatment for mental illness. Patients normally undergo electroconvulsive therapy voluntarily. Although the treatment is very helpful for most individuals with depression, it comes with some side effect, one of which is amnesia. In particular, anterograde amnesia is common, but retrograde amnesia can also occur. Luckily, the anterograde memory loss caused by electroconvulsive therapy is often temporary. Within a few weeks, many patients regain their full ability to create new memories. However, patients may have permanent retrograde amnesia, meaning they may forget what happened in the few weeks surrounding their treatment. These memories may never come back to them.