Have you ever experienced heartbreak and wish that you could go through amnesia and forget all
about that relationship because it was so painful? The movie industry has taken that common idea and turned it into a best-selling movie. However, how much of the information about amnesia is true? How much of the movie was made up in order to promote the romanticism of the movie?
Synopsis
In the movie, “The Vow”, Paige Collins (Rachel McAdams) gets into a car accident and obtains retrograde amnesia. She forgets most of the life she had before she married her husband, Leo (Channing Tatum). Throughout the whole movie, Leo tries to get Paige to remember her memories by showing her the lifestyle they had together before the accident. He eventually decides to create new memories instead so that Paige will fall in love with him again. This is a movie strongly influenced by the true events that occurred to Kim and Krickitt Carpenter.
What is amnesia?
Amnesia is commonly known as the inability to retrieve information that is stored in one’s memory banks. Specifically, retrograde amnesia (RA) is the loss of memories before the onset of the amnesia. (1)
Symptoms (Movie): After a comatose period, Paige wakes up with some facial scratches and loss of memory. She remembers all technical skills that she has obtained and is able to form new memories. Her memory loss is from the time she went to law school up to the current moment, remembering high school friends, etc.
Symptoms (Real): Retrograde amnesia is often accompanied with anterograde amnesia (the inability to create new memories), and with having more difficulty retrieving personal or public information. Episodic memories, which are a person’s own memories of specific events, are most likely to be affected as well.
Patients can often still retain excellent learning abilities and relearn information they may have forgotten which may or may not ignite any old memories. After a period of time, the block of retrieval may be cleared and the patient might recover from RA. Some people, however, never retrieve this information back. (3)
Cause of Amnesia
Movie: The doctors in the movie said that the cause of this amnesia is cranial hemorrhaging shown by the CT scans. They did not note any severe damages except for the swelling of the brain.
Truth: There are many theories to the cause of RA, but the most common area that is injured is the hippocampus. This part of the brain is responsible for the consolidation of memory – which means it takes events and stores them in the long term memory.(4)
Aftermath of Amnesia
Movie: When Leo tried to relive those moments that he used to have with Paige, she became frustrated with his expectations that she would remember their past when she could not.
Truth: Patients often feel frustration from not being able to remember the things that their loved ones mention. They also often feel isolated and unable to meet the expectations of others. Rebuilding oneself is a difficult process because the patient has lost so many memories and they are unsure of who they are. (5) They need a safe and nurturing environment and patience from their loved ones.
Conclusion
When Paige Collins lost her memories, she decides to go back to her old life of wanting to be a lawyer causing her personality to change back to that of 5 years ago. However, as events are revealed to her, she regains her old passion of being an artist. She still did not regain any memories, but her hand and body produced works of art that she did not know she could do.
There are some experiences in life that we do not want to remember believing that the pain can be too much and that forgetting would be the easiest way. However, memories are an important aspect of our lives as they shape who we are and who we are becoming. They influence our ideas and goals and create a sense of self. (SPOILER) She never regains her memory but she decides that she will be with Leo once more. In real life, Kim and Krickett are still together even though she never regained her memory, in honor of their wedding vows.
“Each of us is the sum total of the moments in life, with all the people we have ever known.” –The Vow
(1) Squire, Larry R., and Pablo Alvarez. “Retrograde Amnesia and Memory Consolidation: A Neurobiological Perspective.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 5.2 (1995): 169-77. Web.
(2)Levine, B. “Episodic Memory and the Self in a Case of Isolated Retrograde Amnesia.” Brain 121.10 (1998): 1951-973. Web.
(3)Sellal, François, Lilianne Manning, Caroline Seegmuller, Christian Scheiber, and Francis Schoenfelder. “Pure Retrograde Amnesia Following a Mild Head Trauma: A Neuropsychological and Metabolic Study.” Cortex 38.4 (2002): 499-509. Web.
(4) Nadel, Lynn, and Morris Moscovitch. “Memory Consolidation, Retrograde Amnesia and the Hippocampal Complex.”Current Opinion in Neurobiology 7.2 (1997): 217-27. Web.
(5)”“I Forgot to Remember”: Living with Amnesia.” Saloncom RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2015.