What Are Amnestic Disorders?

Amnesia is a condition caused by brain damage, which is mainly divided into psychogenic amnesia and dissociative amnesia. The characteristics of amnesia are mainly the destruction of consciousness, memory, identity, or the normal integration of the environment, which causes trouble to life, but these symptoms cannot be explained by physiological factors. Patients often don't know who they are, or they often feel like they have a lot of "I".

Basic Information

nickname

Amnesia, memory loss, amnesia

Multiple groups

Psychiatry

Common causes

Brain damage

Common symptoms

Consciousness, memory, identity, normal integration of the environment are disrupted, and life is troubled

Causes of amnesia

Amnesia is a memory disorder. In simple terms, it is a loss of memory. The causes of amnesia are organic or functional. Organic causes include brain trauma or disease, or the use of certain (usually sedative) drugs. The functional reasons are psychological factors, such as psychological defense mechanisms. An example of this is post-traumatic amnesia in hysteria. Amnesia can also be spontaneous, as for transient complete amnesia. This general type of amnesia is more common in middle-aged elderly people, especially men, and usually lasts less than 24 hours.

Another effect of amnesia is the inability to envision the future. A recent study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that amnesiacs with damaged hippocampus cannot imagine the future. This is because when a normal person imagines the future, they will use their past experience to construct a situation that can happen. For example, when trying to imagine what will happen in a future party, one will use past experience to help build the scene in the next party in various ways.

1. Mainly divided into psychogenic amnesia and dissociative amnesia according to causes

(1) Psychogenic amnesia Patients lose their memory of past experience, and amnesia is caused by psychological reasons. The memory lost by a patient is sometimes limited to a certain period of time and cannot be remembered, just remembering the old things and forgetting the present. The memory lost by the patient is limited to the memory of important things. This situation is called "episodic amnesia".

The memory lost by the patient may suddenly occur after suffering a painful attack, and after a period of time, the memory may be restored.

(2) Dissociative amnesia Dissociative amnesia is considered to be the most common dissociation disorder. The most common disease is amnesia of personal identity, but the memory of general information is complete. In fact, amnesia is the most common symptom of all dissociations. There are more women than men in dissociative amnesia, and there are more young adults than older people. The onset of amnesia in this type of case is usually sudden, and the patient will be unable to recall previous life or personality, and will mainly lose past memories, especially traumatic life events.

Patients with this disease usually have more than two types of personality. One personality will become the main personality at different times, and they will ignore each other. When one personality appears, the other personality disappears. The two personalities have their own memories, emotions, behavior patterns, attitudes, etc., and the differences are usually large, as if the two souls live on the same body.

2. According to the length of amnesia content

Divided into temporary amnesia and permanent amnesia.

(1) Temporary amnesia Temporary amnesia is caused by a severe collision of the brain with the outside world, which causes hemorrhage in the brain, and blood clots press part of the memory nerves, causing amnesia. When you bleed after surgery, your memory will be restored. Temporary amnesia. When people suffer from severe social and psychological pressure, they suddenly and temporarily change through personal consciousness, identity, or behavior coordination, which is likely to cause physical and mental collapse. If it is a change in consciousness, they cannot remember important personal events , Psychogenic amnesia occurred. Amnesia can also occur temporarily if you are overstressed. For example, if you suddenly forget the lyrics or lines on stage, this is also a temporary memory loss. Similar to the second temporary amnesia.

(2) Permanent amnesia is the loss and loss of human memory, as if the computer memory data disappeared and could not be found back.

Amnesia type

Local amnesia

Patients completely lose memory of conditions within hours before and after certain traumatic events

2. Selective amnesia

Individuals selectively remember something and forget something about what happened during a certain period of time. It is a person who has been externally stimulated or has a brain collision and has forgotten something he / she does not want to remember or escape or a person or thing.

3. total amnesia

Refers to an individual who completely forgets his or her background, including name, address, etc.

4. Continuous Amnesia

Refers to individuals who have forgotten their past experience before a certain year or event.

Clinical manifestations of amnesia

Mild patient

It is easy to forget what just happened, so it is difficult to learn new things. Sometimes you lose your familiar path, and then you will feel depressed, afraid to go out, and unable to respond to or deal with a large number of letters or bills. Therefore, at this time he may still be able to go to work and work well, not much different from normal people. However, if it is a little more serious, it will be difficult to travel, travel, or plan things such as a banquet, and its work efficiency will obviously deteriorate.

2. Moderate patient

The situation of forgetfulness aggravated, gradually forgetting the names of old friends and the things he had done before. Keep repeating one thing, or ask the same question over and over again, or ask your family to give it again if you think you haven't eaten. What you say to yourself will be Zhang Guanli Dai, or make up stories to come to Tangsai. Not being able to implement what you have written down and agreed to do. The behavior gradually gets out of control, easily excited, weird and wandering around. The clothing is malformed or inappropriate, or wear the same outfit every day. Confusion, or delusions, fantasies, and hallucinations. Gradually unable to bathe, use toilet utensils, and even incontinence.

3. Severe patients

Even family and friends don't recognize it, and they gradually lose the way to communicate with others. They will scream and beat people aimlessly, unable to take care of themselves at all. In the end, they can't even move or swallow. Instead, they need to get in and out of bed and put in the stomach tube to feed.

Amnesia Treatment

There are no clear treatments at present, usually based on psychotherapy, including identifying and appropriately managing stressors, moderate listening, hypnosis or drug-assisted interviews, and encouraging patients to overcome symptoms (such as memories).