50 First Dates

You may remember a quirky movie called 50 First Dates about a woman, played

by Drew Barrymore, who’s lost her ability to form long-term memories. Although

this storyline may seem far-fetched, it’s sadly the case that some people do suffer

memory loss like this as the result of a brain injury. Consider the story of 47-year-old

Michelle. As a result of two car accidents, all her memories before 1994 have been

‘erased’ and she has no recollection of them. Her long-suffering husband has to

show her their wedding photos daily to remind her of what they share.

To complicate things for Michelle, she’s unable to convert daily experiences in her

short-term memory (see Chapter 5) to long-term memory. This means that it’s not

unusual for her to leave the house only to forget where she’s going. She relies on

technology like satellite-navigation systems to get her to places just half a mile from

her house. Michelle describes each day as a new day with no memory of what she

experienced the day before. Although she loves certain TV programmes, she can’t

remember all the characters and can’t follow any of the plot lines. She’s upbeat,

though, and says that at least she feels that she’s never seen the same show twice