What term describes an inability to recall events before a head injury?

• A. Retrograde amnesia
• B. Anterograde amnesia
• C. Cerebral contusion
• D. Subarachnoid hemorrhage

Answer: (A)

The concept here is how memory loss is categorized by timing relative to the injury. Inability to recall events that happened before the head injury is retrograde amnesia. This type means pre-injury memories are disrupted or inaccessible, while the person may still form new memories after the injury if anterograde processes are intact. Anterograde amnesia, by contrast, would be the difficulty or inability to create new memories after the injury, with pre-injury memories usually preserved. The other terms describe physical brain injuries rather than memory loss patterns: a cerebral contusion is bruising of brain tissue, and a subarachnoid hemorrhage is bleeding in the space around the brain. Understanding these distinctions helps assess the pattern of impairment and guides monitoring for potential complications after head trauma.