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Katie Couric is sharing a frightening experience that erased several hours from her memory. The veteran journalist detailed the unsettling incident that left her loved ones worried and looking for answers. After a series of tests, she was diagnosed with a specific type of amnesia and has since been discharged from the hospital. Despite losing parts of her memory, Couric is grateful that the diagnosis wasn’t more severe.

Katie Couric Thought Joe Biden Was President

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On June 27, journalist and presenter Katie Couric was in Aspen, Colorado, for the Aspen Ideas Festival, where she attended two panels. After the event, Couric felt unwell. EMTs at the venue checked her vital signs, but apart from mildly high blood pressure, she seemed fine.

Her husband, John Molner, assumed Couric was suffering from altitude sickness given the high elevation, but he also noticed that his wife “was definitely not all there.” Couric was brought to a hospital for evaluation, and it was there that they found out something wasn’t right.

Couric was subjected to a cognitive assessment test, in which she was asked the current date and the sitting president. “I got them wrong. I wasn’t sure of the month. I thought it was 2024. And I believed Joe Biden was president,” Couric shared in a Substack essay detailing her ordeal.

The Journalist Doesn’t Recall Several Hours Of Her Life

In her essay titled “The Day I’ll Never Remember,” published on July 7, Couric shared that she still has no memory of the event in Aspen she had attended. “I have no idea what we talked about, or of what occurred when the panels ended. What happened next?” Couric wrote. To recount the events, Molner wrote part of the text.

Couric’s husband didn’t observe anything unusual in the journalist’s behavior during her panels. Molner also recounted Couric’s mental assessment, noting that she couldn’t name one of her grandchildren, who had been born three weeks earlier, or her daughter’s partner.

It was then that medical professionals began evaluating Couric for a possible stroke. She was transferred to a Level 1 trauma center, where she underwent an MRI.

Katie Couric Was Diagnosed With Transient Global Amnesia

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Couric’s MRI results showed that she didn’t suffer a stroke, which was encouraging news. However, they still had to figure out what was happening to her.

According to Molner, Couric’s condition became more evident later. “She introduced herself to the nurse every time they came into the room,” he wrote, adding that the journalist repeatedly asked him why she was in the hospital and what she was doing before she got there. “Over the course of the next several hours, she asked me a version of those questions dozens of times,” he noted.

Couric was diagnosed with Transient Global Amnesia (TGA), a sudden episode of confusion that prevents a person from creating new memories and failing to remember recent ones. Per the Mayo Clinic, it isn’t a severe condition, but it can be alarming for the patient.

What Is Transient Global Amnesia?

TGA is a rare condition that affects about 10 per 100,000 people in the U.S. each year and is most common among people aged 50 and older. Its symptoms may include disorientation and confusion, loss of consciousness, dizziness, headache, and asking the same questions over and over, some of which Couric experienced.

According to Cleveland Clinic, TGA episodes may last anywhere from six to 24 hours, and the patient’s memory may gradually come back on its own. There isn’t a known cause of the condition, but medical experts suspect it may be due to a temporary problem in the hippocampus, a part of the brain’s temporal lobe responsible for memory.

Neurologist David Perlmutter said that while it can be alarming, it is usually a “benign condition.” “The episode typically lasts several hours and almost always resolves completely within 24 hours, leaving only a gap in memory for everything that occurred during the event itself.”

Katie Couric Has Not Recovered Part Of Her Memories

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It has been more than a week since Couric’s TGA episode, and although she was discharged from the hospital a day after admission, she still doesn’t know what happened during the Aspen event. “For me, from about noon on Saturday until at least 7 p.m., what happened will stay in a big, black hole,” she wrote.

Couric still doesn’t have answers about her memory loss, but she’s relieved that her health scare didn’t end up being severe. “While this was a freaky occurrence, it could have been much more serious. So ultimately, I’m relieved — even though several hours of a Saturday in June will always be missing for me,” she noted.

The Katie Couric Details ‘Freaky’ Health Scare That Left Her With Memory Loss first appeared on The Blast