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After “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Good Doctor”, it’s time for the Italian medical series “Doc”. The story of this saga immerses us in the story of an emergency doctor – Andréa Fanti – victim of amnesia. Dr. Wilfrid Casseron, neurologist, tells us a little more about this post-traumatic phenomenon.
After an accident, the brain suffers. Motor and visual disorders, attention difficulties… but also sometimes, a “great blur”: a total or partial loss of memory. Amnesia is what the main character of the new “Doc” series broadcast on TF1 and of which Doctissimo is a partner suffers from.
In real life, how do you revive your memories following a traumatic shock? Dr. Casseron reveals some leads.
Andrea Fanti, the hero of the series, fights to regain his memory
The “Doc” series is inspired by the true story of Dr. Pierdante Piccioni, an emergency doctor from Lodi and Codogno, who, following a road accident on the Pavia ring road, forgot the last twelve years of his life. .
A character played in the episodes by Andrea Fanti (Luca Argentero), a brilliant head of the internal medicine department, who sees his life turned upside down when the father of a deceased patient in his department shoots him in the head. Andrea survives the shooting, but struggles to recognize his loved ones, rebuild his life, and understand the man he was.
It is based in particular on the few flashbacks as well as on the testimony of his colleagues.
“People who have suffered serious trauma, such as major head trauma, will often have significant sequelae. The days, even the months preceding the accident can be completely erased”confirms Dr. Casseron.
However, “nothing is fixed, we sometimes have nice surprises”. Some people come out of long and severe comas this way “recover well, following a lot of support work from health experts”.
In the series, Andrea Fanti thus manages to maintain her professional life. He continues to practice in the hospital of Milan and relearns to live in his world – where everything has changed in a few years.
Good in your body, good in your head!
Amnesia: Stimulating the Brain to Recover Memories
Depending on the origin of the trauma, two main types of amnesia are to be differentiated:
- Neurological amnesias are caused by damage to the brain, usually in the area where the hippocampus is found. The lesion can result from a head trauma, a ruptured aneurysm, a lack of oxygen, a tumour, etc.
- Psychogenic or dissociative amnesias are the result of psychological trauma: intense stress, aggression, rape… No lesion is detectable.
To help victims of amnesia (total or partial memory loss), caregivers work on the “old” personality to find it. However, the recovery process will depend on the cause.
“People who have suffered a stroke or a lack of oxygen, for example, will have more difficulty recovering than a victim of encephalitis. Of course, the more severe the brain damage, the more difficult recovery is”confides the neurologist.
Treatment is very often multidisciplinary.
“Autobiographical, procedural, semantic memory… Each health professional will have a specific role in memory”, says the expert. Thereby :
- the psychologist is mainly interested in autobiographical memory, in other words personal memories;
- The speech therapist stimulates learning, as soon as the patient wakes up (episodic and semantic memories). He asks the family about the patient’s way of life before the accident in order to use it later;
- the physiotherapist works on habits, automatisms, for example those of walking (procedural memory). Repetition is essential here to retain the information to be memorized;
- Finally, the occupational therapist assesses the victim’s abilities and disabilities on the motor, cognitive, sensory and psychic levels. He develops new strategies and promotes the patient’s autonomy in his daily life (organization of the house, shopping, children, etc.).
Note that each individual is different. The recovery can be more or less long and varies according to the age, the sex, the nature of the trauma, the form and the genetics of the person and the care received.