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Amnesia is a condition that results from damage to the brain. The cause can be various types of head injuries, diseases such as a brain tumor or stroke, complications after neurosurgical operations, vitamin B deficiency, mental injuries resulting from highly stressful events. Amnesia can occur as a result of emotional shock. It can also be caused by a thermal shock. Amnesia can be complete, partial, permanent, or transient.
Disease amnesia – types
Amnesia is one of the most common memory disorders affecting the comfort of social and everyday life of a sick person. It can be caused by the following factors:
- stroke
- encephalitis
- the action of toxic substances (drugs, alcohol),
- a cancer of the central nervous system,
- hypoxia of the nervous tissue (e.g. as a result of a myocardial infarction),
- head injuries of various origins,
- accidents,
- highly stressful situations,
- traumatic experiences.
There are more reasons, as very different factors can cause this disease. They exist different types of amnesia:
- Retrograde amnesia – the most common and best known form of amnesia. It is characterized by a loss of memory related to past events. Some patients lose memory that is directly related to the timing of the causes of amnesia, while others have memory loss over long periods of time;
- Anterograde amnesia – in this case, the memory impairment refers to the period of time following the occurrence of the causes of amnesia. Patients may remember past events well, but have trouble remembering what happened recently, e.g. a few hours ago (they don’t remember what they ate, who they talked to, who they met, etc.).
While they are two different types of amnesia, it may happen that the patient has symptoms of both retrograde and subsequent.
- Psychogenic Amnesia – Also known as dissociative amnesia. It can occur under the influence of highly traumatic experiences or neurotic disorders. It can be about oblivion about past life, identity, etc., or about specific events. In this type of amnesia, we also deal with the phenomenon of the so-called dissociative fugue, under the influence of which the patient forgets his identity, changes his place of residence, work and way of life, completely cutting himself off from the past (under the influence of oblivion). Dissociative amnesia can be: localized, selective, holistic and continuous. Localized refers to memory loss associated with a specific event, and generally occurs several hours after the traumatic experience. Selective – forgetfulness of some events from a given period. All-in-one – the sick person forgets everything about his life. Continuous – the patient remembers nothing but a specific moment in the past.
- Global amnesia – patients forget very long periods of time in their life, sometimes even for decades. Interestingly, a characteristic symptom of this type of amnesia is the fact that it disappears spontaneously after a few or several hours.
It happens that amnesia it resolves on its own, but unfortunately it is not always the case. In cases permanent amnesia, psychotherapy combined with pharmacological, antidepressant and anxiolytic treatment are generally used.