Trip to dentist leaves man with 90min memory

In a neverbeforeseencase reminiscent of the film Momento a man in the UK has beenleft with just 90minutes of memory after a rootcanal treatment at a dentistresearchers say. The incident left the 38yearold man stuck in anendless loop of waking up and thinking he has a routine dental appointment.
Theamnesia patient suffered memory loss similar to that featured in movies such asGroundhog Day and Memento.The patient was referred to Dr Gerald Burgess aclinical psychologist from University of Leicester a decade ago.

One of our reasons for writing up thisindividuals case was that we had never seen anything like this before in ourassessment clinics and we do not know what to make of it but felt an honestreporting of the facts as we assessed them was warranted that perhaps therewill be other cases or people who know more than we do about what might havecaused the patients amnesia said Burgess.

Our experience was that none of ourcolleagues in neurology psychiatry and clinical neuropsychology could explainthis case or had seen anything like it themselves before said Burgesswho collaborated with Bhanu Chadalavada Consultant Psychiatrist at NorthamptonshireHealthcare Foundation NHS Trust. The man had gone to a dentist for a routineprocedure and lost the ability to create new memories. Since the

onehourrootcanal treatment during which he was given a local anaesthetic theindividual cannot remember anything beyond 90 minutes. He is fully aware of his identity and hispersonality did not change but every day the man thinks it is the day of hisdental appointment. He has to manage his life through an electronic diary andaccess to prompts.

His symptoms are similar to patients sufferingfrom anterograde amnesia. This is when damage to the bilateral hippocampal ordiencephalon regions in the brain cause short spans of awareness as well ascomplete and rapid memory loss. Typically it is brought on by a specific eventor trauma. He can remember his childhood relationships and his children up tothe year 2005 but cant remember what happened more than an hour and a halfago.