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Confabulation (alleged memory) is a story of experiences, evoking memories that did not take place in reality. It is related to the state of damage to memory centers in the brain. The patient makes up his mind unconsciously, and what’s more, he accepts confabulations for facts from life. Where does confabulation come from and what is it about? How to distinguish it from other memory disorders?
Confabulation – what is it?
Confabulation is a memory disorder that involves telling things that never happened. Hence the term alleged memories. A person who confabulates identifies himself with what he says, believes what he says and does not realize that he is telling the truth. That is why in psychology and psychiatry such a person is not called a liar, because you can only lie consciously. Confabulation is often a purely internal phenomenon, when the confabulating person remembers something for his own use, recreating something in his mind.
Confabulation – what are its causes?
Confabulation occurs as a result of damage to the brain centers responsible for memory and association. Studies have shown that these injuries affect the frontal lobes of the brain and the corpus callosum. Thus, confabulation is not a disease, but the result of brain damage and mental disorders and diseases such as:
- schizophrenia,
- encephalitis,
- diseases from the dementia group (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease),
- Capgras syndrome,
- Korsakoff’s syndrome (caused by long-term alcohol abuse – e.g. alcohol confabulation),
- frontal lobe stroke,
- subarachnoid hemorrhage,
- Anton’s syndrome.
Adult confabulation – when does it occur?
To properly understand confabulation, it must be separated from deliberate lying and mythomania. Nothing to do with them. The person who creates confabulation does it unconsciously and involuntarily. Moreover, she herself believes what she says and thinks. Medicine has not fully understood the pathomechanism of confabulation. One theory is that the patient’s memory disturbance causes the need to fill the memory gaps by filling them with confabulations. Confabulations in adults appear against the background of present events as well as from the very distant past. It often appears in thinking and memory disorders in the elderly.
Confabulation in children
Confabulation also characterizes children’s thinking, which is considered a natural stage of childhood development. While confabulation is a cause for concern in adults, it should not be – in children – as long as the child grows out of it. If this does not happen and parents notice disturbing symptoms later in life, consult your doctor. This could be a symptom of a mental disorder or mental illness.
Confabulation – treatment
Confabulation is investigated by both psychiatrists and psychologists. From a psychiatric point of view, mental illnesses and illnesses caused by the confabulations are first treated. Confabulation is not cured because it is not a disease. Treatment focuses on finding the disease and removing its cause. In the course of Korsakoff’s disease, the patient stops abusing alcohol and is given vitamin B1. When confabulation is the result of encephalitis or schizophrenia, the patient is treated with medication. Surgery is required to eliminate subarachnoid hemorrhages. Current psychology is still looking for appropriate therapies that will eliminate confabulation in patients with memory center injuries.
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