Clive Wearing's Amnesia

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Imagine spending time with your loved one and not being able to remember what happened shortly after. Your memories cease to play a role in your life while you’re ability to take in new information is impaired. This is case for Clive Wearing, the person with worst case of amnesia ever recorded. “Each blink, each glance away and back, brought him an entirely new view.” His wife, Deborah and a doctor named Oliver Sacks watch over Clive for twenty years and keep a journal of his progress. Clive had retrograde amnesia which meant he was unable to recall memories since the beginning of his amnesia and the causes of where the amnesia came from were unknown. “It was like being dead,” Clive said. To cope with how he felt, he would write in his journal. However, few minutes apart from one another, he would repeat the same things down in book. As time went by, these events would prove that his chances of improving were bleak and fell into a deep state of depression. His mental state was so poor that he lived in a hospital for seven years and in those seven years, the only time he was happy was when his wife came to visit. It was huge because he would remember who she was and this lead him to able to go home and stay with his wife. At this point , life became easier for him at this point. He was happier and more social to the …show more content…

Oliver continued to question Clive and when he could tell that knowledge was limited he was puzzled. Oliver broke down memory in two different ways called semantic and episodic memory. Episodic memory, another phrase for longer term memory, is completely non existent. However, semantic memory is when you use your immediate memory from the present to complete task. Deborah would randomly break out into song and Oliver would join in with ease. He hit every note while being able to create his own unique style to the song, but could not remember