Hi Tanya

There are two basic types of amnesia, and a TBI can cause both. Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall past memories. This can be a few days or longer, but typically more recent memories are more likely to be lost than older memories. For example, in my case the accident was the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend in 2010, and I have no memory at all of that weekend, although I can recall a vacation we took the month prior.

Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories. In my case although I was in ICU for a month I have little or no memories of those 4 weeks, and only limited memories of the first week I was in neuro-rehab. With TBI cases this will often be referred to as post-traumatic amnesia.

With TBI, memory often improves over time. When I was early in my neuro rehab stay I didn’t know what year it was, who the President was, what hospital I was in or why I was there. A co-worker visited me and while I could remember some of the things we had worked on together I could not recall her name. These memory deficits improved relatively quickly (a few days to a couple of weeks rather than months). I had daily occupational and speech pathology therapy, and these sessions helped tremendously. Essentially this involved rewiring neuro pathways that were disrupted by the trauma.

I know you aren’t his caregiver, but once he has cleared this early amnesia (and this is still early by TBI standards), he should have a neuropsychological assessment done by a clinical neuropsychologist. This evaluation can identify where his cognitive deficits are and from there determine which specific therapies would be most beneficial.

Again, this is early in his recovery. Best to you both.