Posttraumatic stress disorder with amnesia following asphyxiation

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Trauma Studies

Background:

• Traumatic injuries can lead to complex psychological and neurological sequelae.
• The relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and neurological amnesia, particularly retrograde amnesia, is not fully understood.
• Previous studies often focused on brief trauma events, potentially limiting understanding of amnesia in prolonged trauma.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe cases of traumatic asphyxiation injury.
• To investigate the co-occurrence of PTSD and cognitive impairment, including amnesia, following prolonged trauma.
• To explore whether PTSD cognitive symptoms can manifest without conscious memory of the traumatic event.

Main Methods:

• Case series description of five patients with traumatic asphyxiation.
• Assessment of diagnostic criteria for PTSD.
• Evaluation of postinjury cognitive impairment, specifically retrograde amnesia.

Main Results:

• All five patients met diagnostic criteria for PTSD.
• Four patients presented with dense retrograde amnesia, lacking conscious memory of the traumatic event.
• These findings suggest that prolonged trauma exposure is associated with both PTSD and neurological amnesia.

Conclusions:

• Traumatic asphyxiation cases provide evidence for the co-occurrence of PTSD and neurological amnesia.
• These findings challenge previous assumptions based on shorter trauma durations.
• Cognitive symptoms of PTSD can develop even without conscious recall of the traumatic event.