http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/24/070924fa_fact_sacksIn March of 1985, Clive Wearing, an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was struck by a brain infection—a herpes encephalitis—affecting especially the parts of his brain concerned with memory. He was left with a memory span of only seconds—the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded. New events and experiences were effaced almost instantly. As his wife, Deborah, wrote in her 2005 memoir, “Forever Today”:
His ability to perceive what he saw and heard was unimpaired. But he did not seem to be able to retain any impression of anything for more than a blink. Indeed, if he did blink, his eyelids parted to reveal a new scene. The view before the blink was utterly forgotten. Each blink, each glance away and back, brought him an entirely new view. I tried to imagine how it was for him. . . . Something akin to a film with bad continuity, the glass half empty, then full, the cigarette suddenly longer, the actor’s hair now tousled, now smooth. But this was real life, a room changing in ways that were physically impossible.
In addition to this inability to preserve new memories, Clive had a retrograde amnesia, a deletion of virtually his entire past...
That New Yorker article by Sacks contains almost the whole chapter on Wearing from Sacks' book Musicophilia.Ivan Seeking said:
Oliver Sacks said:In January of 1985, his wife records, Clive Wearing , an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was reading “The Lost Mariner,” a piece I had written about a patient with severe amnesia. My patient, Jimmie, I wrote, was “isolated in a single moment of being, with a moat or lacuna of forgetting all round him….He is a man without a past (or future), stuck in a constantly changing, meaningless moment.”
“Clive and I,” Deborah Wearing wrote in her memoir, Forever Today, “could not get this story out of our heads and talked about it for days.” They had no way of knowing that they were, as Deborah put it, “staring into a mirror of our own future.”
Two months later, Clive himself was struck by a devastating brain infection…
Ivan Seeking said:I once met a vet at a VA hospital who had no short-term memory. He was able to tell me that he was in Vietnam and was hit with agent orange, but he also introduced himself several times while we were talking. It was a very strange converation, to say the least!
Vietnam veterans who served in the conflict between 1961 and 1971, and who suffer from memory loss that Agent Orange caused, may be eligible under the law to receive benefits from the US Department of Veteran Affairs. The Department offers comprehensive medical exams, hospital care, medical care, home care, disability benefits, and other social programs for victims of Agent Orange exposure who have suffered physical harm as a result.
Memory loss Agent Orange induced is just one symptom that is recognized to be a presumptive condition of Agent Orange exposure. The most distinguishing adverse effects of Agent Orange exposure include Chloracne, liver dysfunction, personality disorders, cancers, and birth defects. Numerous other conditions have also been associated with Agent Orange exposure.
Agent Orange is an herbicide that was used extensively by the US military during the Vietnam conflict between 1961 and 1971. The US military dropped more than 100 million pounds of Agent Orange over six million acres of land in South Vietnam in order to clear plant life and expose the enemy during conflict. Exposure to Agent Orange can cause serious birth defects including spina bifida, missing body parts, and other serious health problems in offspring of Agent Orange exposed victims.
It is estimated that 2.6 million US troops (and millions of allied troops and Vietnam citizens) were involved in the conflict in South Vietnam. All of these veterans are at risk for developing serious adverse health problems as a result of Agent Orange exposure. The memory loss Agent Orange causes can be just one symptom of a more serious psychiatric or neurological condition. The affects of Agent Orange can appear soon after exposure or it may take up to twenty years for adverse health symptoms to develop.
zoobyshoe said:Apparently that's one of the possible symptoms of Agent Orange poisoning:
Clive Wearing suffers from a severe case of anterograde amnesia, which is the inability to create new memories.
Clive Wearing's condition was caused by a viral infection that attacked his brain, specifically the parts responsible for forming and storing memories.
Unfortunately, there is currently no known cure for anterograde amnesia. However, Clive Wearing has received various forms of therapy to help him cope with his condition.
Clive Wearing still has some memories from his past, particularly related to his musical abilities and his wife, whom he remembers as his "soulmate". However, he is unable to form new memories of these past events.
Clive Wearing's condition has greatly impacted his daily life. He is unable to remember anything for more than a few seconds, making it difficult for him to carry out even simple tasks or hold a conversation. He relies heavily on his wife and caregivers for support and assistance.