Health
Rosie Paley Remembers Nothing Before She Was 16
Coronal T2-weighted MR image shows high signal in the temporal lobes including hippocampal formations and parahippocampal gyrae, insulae, and right inferior frontal gyrus. A brain biopsy was performed and the histology was consistent with encephalitis. PCR was repeated on the biopsy specimen and was positive for HSV
Imagine waking up one morning and remembering nothing about your life before you woke up. According to telegraph.co.uk/health, that’s exactly what happened to Rosie Paley.
Rosie contracted encephalitis and suffered a fit or seizure, when she awoke, she couldn’t remember anyone or anything about her life prior to the seizure. Not her mother, her two younger brothers, not even her childhood friends. With her long term memory completely obliterated, Rosie remembers nothing of her childhood, her favorite foods, her favorite toys or even how to ride a horse.
Rosie, from Brierly Hill, Birmingham, tells the Telegraph: “I can’t remember anything from when I was ill or any time before.
“I’ve lost all my childhood friends as I can’t recognise them or reminisce about old times and so it’s hard to be around them as they knew the old me before the memory loss.
“When I first came round, mum brought my two younger brothers to see me. I had no idea who they were and I panicked. My mum had to introduce them to me. I found it really difficult, but they took it in their stride.
“Getting to know them again has been great though – Rhys loves telling me tales about all the things we have done together that I can’t remember.
“I have had to change every aspect of my life now because I don’t know what I was like before.
“Looking back at pictures I can see I had an amazing childhood I just wish I had the memories to go with the pictures.
Today, two years later, Rosie is able to recognize her mom and younger siblings, but she still has no memory of her school friends and she still has struggles with her short term memory on a daily basis.
Rosie remembers nothing from her illness, and nothing from her life prior to the age of 16. It took time, but today Rosie is able to remember and recall her siblings. At first, she was really uncomfortable around them but the siblings quickly disarmed her fears and since they remembered Rosie, they are able to help her fill in some of the gaps of her childhood memories.
Using old family photos, Rosie is trying to peince together her life.
She said: “I started putting all of my photos on my wall to try to jog my memory as I hoped that it wasn’t gone forever.
“When I looked at them I could see how happy I was at the time but it just draws blank in my head as I can’t think of the actual event or how I was feeling at the time.
“Most people my age look back at high school as the best years of their life but I can’t do that, I can just look at the pictures and imagine what it must have been like.
Today Rosie’s life is about making new memories and sharing them with her family.
“Life is now about making my new memories, it’s like I’m starting from the beginning.”
Ava Easton, chief executive of the Encephalitis Society, said 4,000 new cases are identified every year in the UK.
She said: “The causes include infection, and the immune system going rogue and attacking healthy tissue.
“It is the herpes simplex that is most likely to attack the parts of the brain responsible for memory.
“Of those people who survive encephalitis – the mortality rate is 80 per cent without swift treatment – seven out of ten respond to the anti-viral drug Aciclovor, ideally if it is given with 24 or 48 hours.
“However, those whose memory has been attacked are unlikely to recover in that respect, although what sufferers can develop is better ways of coping with their condition.”
There are no accurate statistics regarding the number of cases of encephalitis here in Canada, because many factors influence how it is reported to the various provincial health units, according to a report from the CBC.
“There is no good overall Canadian data, as this is not a reportable condition,” say Dr. Ari Bitnun, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto and staff physician at the Hospital for Sick Children.
Teenager Rosie Paley remembers nothing before age of 16
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10240240/Teenager-Rosie-Paley-remembers-nothing-before-age-of-16.html
Encephalitis a moving target for researchers, doctors
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/04/01/f-encephalitis-research-nervous-system.html
Encephalitis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis
