How long does post-traumatic amnesia last?
My friend was in a motorcycle accident 2 weeks ago and was in a coma for 2 days. He has diffuse axonal brain injury and is dealing with post-traumatic amnesia. He has moments where he knows what's going on and moments where he's very confused. He remembers things before the accident but has no short term memory right now. Just looking for some insight into how long this stage has lasted for others. Thank you.
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He will always have some degree of memory problems now...but it should dramatically improve over the next few months...if the injury was only two weeks ago & he woke up after only 2 days then he sounds like he's going to be fine tbh...it's very early days...most improvements happen over the course of the first year...
Best advice at this stage is to keep reminding him what happened..."you're in a hospital, you were in an accident, etc"...it also really helps to keep a calender & clock within easy visual distance...show him the calender, point to the day the accident happened, explain how much time has passed, point to everyday individually with your finger until you reach today and tell him this is where we are now...my daughter was blown away when I did this for her...she couldnt speak at the time but she mouthed "wow"...just keep doing that to keep him orientated in space & time...be aware that he will forget everything you tell him quickly afterwards...but just keep doing it & reminding him...
My daughter kept requesting to watch the same dvds over & over again because shed forgotten shed watched them...this will pass...she's doing her A-levels now...she needs extra help & time to process & does forget things...but is still slowly improving 3 years post accident...
How long does it last??...it's very hard to draw a line...it will gradually improve over time...that's all anyone can say really...in a couple of weeks he will have improved, then a couple of weeks after that he'll improve again... In the beginning it seems slow, then the improvements come quite quickly....he'll keep improving like that over the first year...then it will all slow down...but he should still slowly have improvements years into the future...especially the more he works at it...
You may have heard that it's different for each person, but for severe brain injuries, it can last a while. My was in a coma for 3 weeks, and his post-traumatic amnesia lasted several weeks. Here's an article that may help from the Brain Injury Association of New Jersey on what to expect: https://bianj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/whenwillirecover.pdf