Memory,  Learning

Change in a person’s understanding or behavior due to experience or practice.  Often thought of as acquisition of new information.  For example, a person who learns quickly will likely remember an entire set of instructions after hearing them a single time.  A patient with severely impaired learning ability will show little gain in recall after numerous repetitions.  Learning and memory are interdependent.  If immediate memory is poor, learning will be poor because only a portion of the information will be available for rehearsal/repetition.  It is important to not that patients may have intact learning ability, but poor delayed memory.  For example, a brain-injured patient may learn a set of instructions after several repetitions, but forget them the next day.