I recently had shoulder surgery for which I was placed under general anesthesia. When I was revived, about an hour/half later, I wasn't aware of where I was, who I was, what had occurred, and couldn't identify any of the people in post op, not the doctors or even the friend who was there to take me home. There was the standard high level of concern and attention. They asked the basics - do you know who, where, age, date, etc. I was eventually transferred to a local hospital where they checked brain waves, rechecked vitals, and asked the same questions. I lost a little less than a week of overall memory, and for that I'm not concerned. My issue is the inability to recognize or identify people, everybody. Some are, including relatives and close friends, vaguely familiar. The other unusual challenge is I can't decipher a regular clock. I can tell time if there are numbers, but not the traditional clock. Other than these two issues I seem fine and functional. The doctors prescribe patience and if there is no improvement after about a week, I will be referred to a specialist. My question is why such specific memory blocks or impairment? It’s like getting into your car and totally forgetting where you intended to go, or writing and forgetting how to spell "what". Well, I'm stock, behind the wheel. How unusual is this??

Being able to recognise people is handled by a very specific part of your brain, face recognition is very important to us humans and is one of the first things we learn (who is mom, who is dad etc). So we have dedicated circuitry for that which develops when we are very young. There are people who have never been able to recognise faces.

See Prosopagnosia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , a condition where one cannot recognise faces but may be able to recognise anything else easily (they often learn to identify people through clothing, smell, etc.). This condition is further proof that our face-interpreting circuits are separate from how we identify other things (an evolutionary advantage if you know who your mom and dad are).

Telling the time is very similar for us. We look at a clock and we see the angles that the arms are at and we know the time. I suppose this could be linked to your face recognition area.

This might explain how these areas could be damaged. Leading to the effects you experience.

It's about as unusual as any other kind of specific brain damage.

Memory loss after general anesthesia not uncommon and recent studies have proven a correlation between the two. This is particularly evident when inhaled anesthesia such as halothane or isoflorane has been used, (as opposed to intravenous anesthesia such as propofol or thiopental). Studies have shown that some inhaled anesthetics cause amyloid B (AB) peptides to clump together causing memory loss. The good news is that these symptoms should go away within a few weeks. As a precautionary measure however, you should be tested for the presence of AB peptides as they may indicate conditions which you could treat as recommended by your neurologist.