Amnesia

Amnesia is the disease connected with partial or total loss of memory as spontaneous and temporary, so long and constant type. Memory can return in a chronological order or by the principle of the brightest memoirs.

Reasons and symptoms of amnesia

The reasons of amnesia happen two main types – organic and psychological. The organic reasons are connected with injuries, diseases of a brain and a nervous system, alcoholism, drug addiction, and also with effect of antidepressants, hypnotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

Psychological causes of illness have psychogenic character and are usually connected with mental injuries and stresses.

Craniocereberal injuries, encephalitis, stroke and intoxication, and also suffocation, poisonings with poisonous gases, ischemia and a hypoxia can be the reasons of amnesia.

If the disease has gradually increasing character, then it can be connected with pathological frustration and degenerative processes in a brain, development of tumors and display of a mental disease. Short-term loss of memory often is the result of disturbances of cerebral circulation, attacks of epilepsy and acute migraine.

Amnesia can have both independent symptoms, and combined with other diseases. Amnesia symptoms usually are sudden or a wastage of memory, confusion of consciousness, a lack of coordination, loss of orientation on time and space, lack of ability to recognize people. Symptoms of amnesia can be shown within several minutes, hours or years.

Long amnesia leads to full loss of memory and a disorientation, but at the correct treatment the patient can receive an absolute recovery.

Often heavy alcohol addiction is the reason of amnesia in an acute form. The syndrome of Vernike which is followed by acute confusion of consciousness, disturbance of brain function and lack of own identification is in that case shown.

Amnesia symptoms with Vernike's syndrome are drowsiness, vision disorders and hearing, bad coordination, spasms of muscles and paralysis.

Types of amnesia

Now in medicine there are several main types of amnesia:

• anterograde with loss of ability of storing of events and people;
• retrograde with lack of memoirs prior to the beginning of a disease;
• traumatic which arose after an injury, falling and blow;
• fixating with disturbance of memory for several minutes;
• dissociated which is an effect of a mental injury;
• Korsakov's syndrome proceeding in a severe form with long loss of memory because of alcoholism;
• localized with disturbance of one or several modalities of memory, connected with defeats of certain departments of a brain and combined with loss by memory on words, movement skills and recognition of objects;
• selective with loss of memory on the certain event having mental and stressful character;
• dissociative with serious consequences and total loss of memory of the patient of the personality and the biography;
• the nursery connected with birth and age trauma, experiences, stresses, and also the slowed-down or stopped development of departments of a brain.

Treatment of amnesia

To the first periods of development of a disease and in the absence of progressing treatment of amnesia is carried out by means of neuropsychological methods of rehabilitation of patients. Medicines which strengthen functioning of a brain, such as piracetam, семакс, Encephabolum, глиацитин, etc. are a part of therapy.

If the disease has traumatic character, then therapy is directed to treatment of the main effects of a physical injury.

At an amnesia combination to Vernike's syndrome appoint an intravenous rate of thiamin for recovery of functioning of a brain. Treatment has the emergency character as the disease in the started stage often leads to a lethal outcome.

Effective treatment of amnesia of psychological type consists in holding sessions of hypnosis, purpose of psychotherapy, and also a rate of medicines of antipsychotic action.