Before 50 First Dates, there was Groundhog Day where a reporter played by Bill Murray relived the occasion every waking day of his life. It was fun, but then it was fiction. This man's experience isn't.
The strange case is one of the recent features in Neurocase. Taking the lead of the research is University of Leicester lecturer in clinical psychology Dr. Gerald Burgess. For someone who has been in the field for many years, this certainly isn't the first time he encountered an amnesia story. However, what sets this one apart is the fact they haven't dealt with anything like it before. In fact, it's so new and so rare that they are considering of putting in in a whole new classification.
The man, 38, whose name remains withheld, feels that it's still March 2005 and that he has a dental appointment. He always wakes up with a newfound confusion and bewilderment as he walks about his mother's home.
According to the case report, the man did have a dental appointment in 2005 where he underwent a root canal surgery. This procedure is often complex that an anesthesia is given to the patient. While in the dental chair, after the procedure, he became less responsive and pale, which meant a nerve connected to regulating blood pressure and heart rate may have been disturbed.
He was immediately brought to the hospital when his amnesia began. He could hold new memories for only 10 minutes. Fortunately, it went to 90 minutes.
It could have been an anterograde amnesia, which meant he could no longer form any new memory. But this happens only if the person has suffered brain damage, which he didn't. It's just he tends for forget everything that happens by the time he wakes up, remembering instead the day of dental appointment.
Other than the "deep forgetting," the man hasn't lost his cognitive ability or even his intelligence. He also remembers family members and details about himself, though to keep up with what's happening in his life, he is now maintaining a diary.
