LIFESTYLE
A Louisiana grandmother who went to the hospital with a headache claimed she cannot remember her memories from the past 30 years, believing she was a teenager in the 1980s when she woke up in a wild extensive amnesia case.
Kim Denicola was 56 years old when she developed an intense headache and blurry vision while at a bible study group in Baton Rogue, La. in Oct. 2018.
When she awoke in the hospital emergency room, Denicola had no recollection that she was married and had two children.
Kim Denicola
Kim Denicola
Denicola was unaware that computers existed and that the country’s leaders had changed hands several times when she woke up.
Denicola was diagnosed with extensive amnesia, officially transient global amnesia or TGA, but doctors still can not determine the exact cause even after extensive tests and scans, according to the outlet.
Five years after she suffered the migraine that changed her life, the nearly 60-year-old grandmother has still not recovered memories.
Doctors are afraid she will never get her memory back.
TGA is a “temporary, anterograde amnesia with an acute onset” that mostly affects individuals middle-aged and older, according to the National Library of Medicine, with 5.2-10 people of 10,000 suffering annually with the number rising to 23.5-32/100,000 individuals over the age of 50.
It often occurs during periods of “particularly strenuous activity, high-stress events, or coitus, but it can be seen with migraines.” The memory condition is often a temporary event and can reoccur, but death is very rare.