Amnesia: symptoms, treatment

Amnesia is a complete or partial loss of the ability to reproduce the information that a person received earlier. This problem may arise due to a traumatic brain injury, as well as due to somatic or psychological diseases of a person.

Proper possession of one's own memory implies the perception of new information, its systematization, and, if necessary, extraction. Regardless of which of these stages is disrupted, amnesia can be triggered. There are several types of this disease:
- Retrograde – all events that occurred before the injury or before the impact of another provoking factor, a person completely forgets.
- Anterograde – the patient perfectly remembers what happened to him before a certain moment that caused memory loss, but he does not remember what happened after.
- Global – combines the signs of the previous two types: the patient does not remember what happened to him before the injury or illness, nor relatively recent events.
- Transient – it is diagnosed after a brain injury.
- Permanent – this type of disease occurs after a person has suffered a serious illness that has caused memory loss: encephalitis, ischemia, cardiac arrest, etc.
- Progressive – we are talking about amnesia, as a concomitant symptom in dementia, for example, in Alzheimer's disease.

In addition, two types of memory disorders are possible: if the declarative one has suffered, the patient will not be able to recall facts from life, familiar faces, etc., and if the procedural one is violated, the patient cannot use basic self-service skills.

As mentioned above, amnesia can be triggered by both organic factors (brain damage, heart attack, hypoglycemia, head trauma, etc.) and psychological ones.

Symptoms of amnesia

The symptoms of amnesia are specific enough for the patient to be suspected of having this disease from the very beginning, however, in order to make a definitive diagnosis and establish the cause of the memory impairment, qualified medical care is still required. As a rule, if amnesia is caused by a traumatic brain injury or organic brain damage, the patient is already under medical supervision at this point. Therefore, if the medical staff or relatives notice symptoms of amnesia in him (lack of understanding of where he is and how he got here, lack of adequate information about himself, lack of recognition of relatives or acquaintances), the doctor will immediately conduct the necessary tests that will confirm or refute the diagnosis.

The situation is somewhat more complicated if memory loss is caused by psychological factors. In this case, a patient who is not registered with a neurologist or psychiatrist for various mental disorders may suddenly lose the ability to reproduce past events due to severe emotional stress. Such a situation is a great responsibility for the relatives of this person, because they are the ones who should pay attention to the abnormality of what is happening to him and seek medical help.

Treatment of amnesia

Despite the fact that the treatment of amnesia does not always bring the expected result, it is not allowed to ignore the patient in this condition. First, you need to identify the cause that caused the memory loss and eliminate it. So, if there is a concomitant disease, it is necessary to start therapy with its treatment, but if the amnesia is provoked by psychological factors, the help of a psychotherapist is mandatory.

There are many cases when acute amnesia is treated (for example, with TBI or stress). it is not required, because it passes after a certain time on its own. At the same time, it is important to understand that if all the activities carried out do not have the expected effect, the underlying disease is cured, but it does not bring back memory — it is hardly possible to change the situation and there is nothing left but waiting. Visit our store and use bonus points to buy a free bet! A customer can select a promo code of any value and on any type of sport. Learn how 1xbet promo code for free bet the extra money from your bonus account can be used for betting. The latter also requires wagering the winnings. 1xBet Bonus Here! Find out how to use the code when registering to get up to $130 welcome bonus. A promo code for a free accumulator bet on football consisting of three events or more – each event must have odds of 1.8 or higher.