Does anyone else out there have memory lapses? I left my house last Monday morning to meet girlfriends for lunch at a place only about 6 miles from my home. I stopped at the bank to get some cash and from there I do not remember a thing until I realized about 1 1/2 hrs. later I was in another state! I live in N. Illinois and was in S. Wisconsin! So not too far. But I have no recollection of how I got there or why? I saw a police car parked in a lot and turned around and went back and told him I was lost, confused and I have PD! He was an Angel! And speaking of Angels, there had to be one driving my car! Very Scary! And I have had some other memory lapses also, but not as serious as this! None of my doctors seem to be too concerned so far! My Phsychiatrist says it is not phsycological, it has to be Neuorlogical! But who will take the bull by the horns sand try to figure this out? No one so far! The driving issue should be very serious to me! Of course now I can not drive anymore, but no one can tell me why? Anyone else have any experiences similar to this? If so, have you gotten any answers? Any help would be appreciated! Thank you.
If it is neuro I would request a MRI or CT to ensure that there isn't any serious pathology. The next question for me would be if there is a drug related issue that may be rectified. Maybe a neuropsychiatric eval could shed light on the cause. Driving is something that I would hate to lose though I do not drive when I feel off in any way.
Hi from Florida; This has been a big problem for me and like you I drive very little my DR. states it is part of PD, but as of today I not sure how it will be treated. I think they are not sure.
I started having cognitive problems about 4 years after being diagnosed with PD. Some times I could not figure out equations while using Microsoft Excel (when I worked full time Excel problems were no problem), other times I would forget things in terms of short term memory. My neurologist prescribed Exelon. It is a patch that helped greatly. I used it for about a year, and now things seem normal again. Anyway, it worked for me, maybe it will be the key for your memory.
I you were feeling emotionally aroused on your 6 mile journey I believe you could easily experience this type event where its like a time dislocation. Certainly if you are in a trance it is possible that you will experience a mismatch between your perception of time and the real passage of time for the duration of the trance.
This is rather like being completely absorbed by some activity requiring your full concentration and suddenly realising that much more time has elapsed than it felt like had passed.
The emotional arousal also does not have to be generated by an extremely disheartening event or trauma. It could just be an accumulation of relatively minor worries that all add up to a significant degree of anxiety.
Now, if you have what might be described as an elevated level of background anxiety that you're not even aware of it would not take too much extra worry or anxiety provoking concerns to add to that background level to result in strange psychological events such as memory lapses or panic attacks maybe even flashbacks for those who have a degree of trauma floating around in their thoughts. This is a kind of last straw scenario.
This type of thing may occur in response to a quite minor stimulus. For example driving a car can result in a huge amount of extra adrenalin, perhaps from a near accident, and could very easily be enough to raise your anxiety level above that background level, enough to result in the said psychological events.
Having said all that PD does result in cognitive problems, For myself I find I don't have the attention span that I once did. Perhaps this is a function of becoming an old fart. I find reading anything is difficult as regardless of the type of thing being read, very soon my attention drifts elsewhere. Again is this due to the old fart factor or to PD. In my case I suspect PD as I 'm not yet fully qualified in terms of age to join the ranks of the old farts.
Distinguishing between PD caused phenomena and those not so caused is very difficult. Rather like a fall I had some months ago. It could easily have occurred as a non-PD person or it could be the first fall attributable to having PD or another way of putting it if you have a headache and you take a tablet and the headache goes away, it is impossible to be absolutely certain that the headache would not have gone even if you hadn't taken a pill.
In what you, Carol, have said there is nothing that I can see that pinpoints the problem as being derived from medication. That of course does not exclude the possibility of some drug having these effects but I would guess that your culprit is PD.
Pete, Wow, thank you for taking the time to explain all this! I really appreciate it!
As far as driving issues go, our only child, died in a car accident and so I guess my subconscious mind could have something to do with driving a car!
I did fall as a child and cracked my head open on the ice! And I have a lot of anxiety and a history of blacking out (memory lapses) from a very dysfunctional childhood! And of course falls and hitting my head after being diagnosed with PD! My Neuro has never inquired about any of this! So we will be talking about these things when I see him after all these tests! So I do believe there is so much that can be attributed to my problem!
It has been a pleasure. There is such a lot more of this kind of stuff. My hypnotherapy and Counselling course lasted 3 years and there must be thousands of books on things psychtherapeutic.
this is a serious issue. The PD dr asked me to see a nuuro psy as they are doing a Michael J fax study. I thought the study was on memmory but I was confused. Anyway she said I do not have early ahtimes. It is conitive issues because of early PD. She told me to write notes down. I also text myself. Also keep directions printed uot to every location I need to go. I dont drive at night. I still get lost because I like to try to remember cut through or short cuts I use to know. It is one thing when your confused and dont know it it is another when yo know your confused. I also am driving my family crazy asking them their work or school schedule over and over. We not have dry erase boards for everyone's schedules. Dr told me to sing, work jig saw and cross word puzzles. It is also a local group called daisy braines.com. It is awful
To me this has been one of the worse things to deal with. Not thinking right. I have ruined a bunch of cookies and many home made Christmas gifts as a result of my thinking issues
Same with me! I have tried to make Christmas cookies, fudge, etc...and had to throw them all away! Sometimes I can laugh at it, and sometimes I just cry! One day at a time! I try hard to count my blessings, that money can not buy! Merry Christmas!
My brain used to be my prize possession, my great equalizer, my most favorite toy that never let me down. Now, and I am only 59 years old, I am constantly forgetting things that i have planned to do even if i've committed to someone else that I would have something by a specific date and time - a measure I used to be able to trust that I would never forget that obligation!
I am also constantly losing words and forgetting names (I used to be great at names!) when I speak, and even as a former math teacher finding basic arithmetic functions to be very daunting - like adding a 20% tip to a restaurant check...it boggles my mind to not have the excellent memory I used to enjoy.
I've never driven out of state by accident but I think it is the same type of mental functions we're talking about here.
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