Loss of memory, amnesia - Causes, symptoms and treatment. MF.
Amnesia is the loss of memories or, in other words, loss of memory.
Possible development of complete amnesia or partial. Complete amnesia is the complete loss of all memories for a certain period of time. Partial amnesia is not a complete loss of memories, memory preserves vague images, scraps of events with violation of spatio - temporal characteristics.
Depending on the lost period of memory, amnesia is retrograde, retroantegrade, antegrade, retarded.
- Retrograde amnesia is a loss of memories of events that preceded the moment of the disease.
- Antegrade amnesia is a loss of memories for a period immediately after the release from the unconscious state.
- Anterotrogenic amnesia is a combination of them.
- Retarded amnesia - memories disappear not immediately, but are lost after some long time after losing consciousness.
On development distinguish - regressing, stationary, progressing amnesia.
- Regressing amnesia - amnesia with the restoration of lost memories.
- Fixed amnesia - persistent and non-changing memory loss for certain life events.
- Progressive amnesia - the gradual erasure of memory from the present to past events. The ability to memorize new events is lost, the memories are lost and confused in time, the emotional coloring of past events fades away and they disappear. Children's and young people's memories and professional skills are kept more clearly and longer.
Possible causes of amnesia
Dissociated( dissociative) amnesia is the loss of recent important events, facts of personal life, while retaining all other events and skills. It often occurs with mental trauma, tragic cases, loss of loved ones. At the same time, there are no organic brain lesions, intoxication, fatigue. Memory is lost only in the waking state, under hypnosis the patient can restore events.
Post-hypnotic amnesia - the inability to remember what happened in a hypnotic state.
Dissociative fugue - psychogenic amnesia, flight in a state of mental trauma, in extreme situations - a difficult condition when the patient leaves and completely forgets his entire biography for hours and months, less often longer. Then all of a sudden you can remember everything and forget the events that happened during the fugue.
Amnesia can be the only manifestation of the disease, and can be combined with agnosia, apraxia, aphasia. The lost memories of the patient can be replaced by false - confabulation, can distort the events that have occurred - paramnesia.
Stroke, cerebral trauma, herpetic encephalitis, intoxications, metabolic encephalopathies, degenerative diseases of the brain, tumors, mental illnesses, epilepsy, emotional shock can lead to amnesia.
Anatomic structures providing memory function - hypothalamus, mastoid bodies, medodorsal nucleus of thalamus, temporal lobes, frontal lobes. The mediobasal system ensures the speed of memorization, learning, perception, recognition, fixation of new information. The cortex of the large hemispheres is a giant storehouse of long-term memory. Almond-like body, cerebellum and cortex provide procedural memory. Memory is modulated by cholinergic, noradrenergic, serotonergic, dopaminergic brain systems. The acquisition and storage of new data is also provided by post-tetanic potentials, especially in the hypocampal neurons, glutamate NMDA receptors. Any damage to these structures can cause amnesia.
Diseases accompanied by amnesia
For concussion of the brain is characterized by retrograde amnesia. For more severe injuries, the anteretrograde amnesia is characteristic. The victim does not remember the events that preceded the trauma, the trauma itself and the events that followed the trauma. What happened? Who beat him? How did you get to the hospital? Who brought it? The patient lost the answers to these questions. With late posttraumatic psychoses, retarded amnesia can develop.
For , Korsakov's syndrome is characterized by retrograde and fixative amnesia - complete amnesia for current events. The patient can not remember whom he communicated with, where his ward dined or not, does not orientate in place and time, but well remembers distant events. Confabulation is possible. Characteristic for alcoholism, B1 vitamin deficiency, malignant formations, AIDS, herpetic encephalitis, degenerative dementias .
With epilepsy, develops amnesia for a period of epileptic seizure.
Long-term hypoxia of the brain may lead to amnesia, for example, when the blood circulation stops, suffocating, carbon monoxide poisoning, cerebral stroke.
With intoxicating amnesia , events that occurred during alcohol poisoning, carbon monoxide, pesticides, drugs, barbiturates, benzodiazepines are lost forever.
Hysterical amnesia - selective loss of unpleasant, "unprofitable" events, circumstances - is observed in mental illnesses.
Brain tumors cause memory impairment, behavior, personality.
Amnesia is a symptom of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Peak, neurodegenerative diseases, neurosyphilis .
All these diseases except for amnesia have their clinical picture, their symptoms and characteristics. Differential diagnosis deals with a doctor.
All patients with amnesia should be examined - electroencephalography, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, blood tests, biochemical and toxicological analyzes individually, examinations of the neurologist, psychiatrist and expert in narcology, special tests to determine memory functions, if necessaryneurosurgeon, infectionist. The patient can not always objectively assess the presence of memory impairments, so the help of relatives, friends, and employees is very valuable. Treatment of amnesia
Mechanisms of memory are very complex. Recovering lost memories is a very problematic issue. Treatment of amnesia includes effects on the underlying disease, neuropsychological rehabilitation, use neuroprotectors - cerebrolysin, citicoline, memantine, semax, cortexin, cytoflavin, glycine and ginkgo-biloba preparations, B vitamins, antioxidants.
Prevention of memory impairment
Prevention of memory disorders can be considered a healthy lifestyle without the abuse of alcohol, drugs, without drugs, wakefulness and sleep, exercise, walking, nutrition, memory training, in case of problems, timely access to a doctor and treatment.
For a healthy brain and memory, you need a diverse diet - proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins - beef, fatty fish, milk and lactic acid foods, fat, eggs, buckwheat and oatmeal, pasta from durum wheat, potatoes, honey, vegetablesand fruits - banana, peach, pear, apples, blueberries, tomatoes, broccoli, pumpkin seeds, spinach, turmeric, cinnamon, caraway, black chocolate, walnuts.
To which doctor should I apply for amnesia
In case of amnesia caused by traumatic brain injury, an ambulance should be called for. It is necessary to consult a neurologist, in some cases - a doctor of a psychotherapist.
Doctor neurologist Kobzeva Svetlana