Memory impairment - causes, symptoms and treatment

Prognosis and prevention

Considering the different severity of the primary disease in each patient, as well as the organic and psychogenic causes of hypermnesia, there can be no clear prognosis for recovery.
With minor mental disorders, complete recovery occurs much more often, in contrast to cases of brain damage by tumor formations, hydrocephalus and irreversible degenerative processes in the cerebral cortex.

You can avoid the possibility of hypermnesia whenever possible. For this purpose, taking narcotic drugs, alcohol intoxication, accidental or intentional overdoses of psychotropic drugs is unacceptable.

At the first alarming symptoms of a mental disorder, you should immediately contact a psychotherapist for help. And periodic brain examinations using MRI will help detect the problem as early as possible.

The phenomenon of hypermnesia has nothing to do with brilliant supermemory. Due to the enormous psychological burden, this condition is extremely painful and requires immediate treatment.

Other common causes

What are the most common reasons for forgetfulness? First things first.

A common cause of forgetfulness is improper hydration. The body lacks fluid - the brain suffers first. Brain function deteriorates even with a slight lack of fluid, but we don’t drink much pure water, preferring coffee, tea, sweet drinks and soda.
Forgetfulness often occurs due to frequent stress. During stress, the brain is heavily overloaded, and the nervous system loses vitamins and minerals: they literally burn out - the cells have nothing to eat.
The eternal desire to become slimmer by not eating a balanced and proper diet also leads to forgetfulness. Brain nutrition can deteriorate due to excessive enthusiasm for weight loss diets: most often, women “sitting” on such diets sharply reduce the amount of fats and carbohydrates - for the brain, which needs glucose and fatty acids, this is a shock.
A common cause of forgetfulness is smoking and drinking alcohol: they generally poison the brain, cause vascular spasms, slow down the thinking process and reduce the speed of perception. Of course, forgetfulness is not the worst problem that a “drunk” and “smoking” lifestyle leads to.

Symptoms

The main symptom of amnesia is, of course, memory loss itself. A person can forget any things for a short period of time or forever. Even a situation where you can’t find your car keys is a sign of amnesia. There are also a number of other symptoms that can be associated with the causes of this disease. Almost all of them can occur, but often only a few of them appear, and sometimes the person simply becomes very forgetful.

Possible symptoms:

Confusion. The person has problems with perception, cannot remember important information, and his behavior becomes strange.
Paramnesia and confabulation appear. This means a distortion of facts and any memories in a person’s head, as well as the presence in memory of false events that never happened. Often accompanied by hallucinations.
Speech problems. The person speaks slurredly, utters meaningless phrases, or cannot say a word at all.
Low concentration, impaired brain activity. It is difficult for the patient to concentrate on one specific task and do usual activities.
Headache. The pain can be periodic, but sometimes does not stop for a very long period. Their strength depends on the root cause.
Dizziness. The head may feel slightly dizzy, which many people don’t pay attention to at first.
Lack of orientation in space. The patient does not understand where he is and does not recognize familiar places. At the same time, he completely loses orientation in space.
Coordination problems. It is difficult for a person to control his body, he often makes mistakes in movements.
Shiver. A person sometimes suddenly begins to tremble. There are no obvious reasons for trembling.
Fatigue. Feelings of extreme fatigue can appear at any time of the day or last for several days.
Bad mood. The patient is not in the mood for positive communication; he has a complete lack of interest in what is happening around him.

All these symptoms are signs of either the root cause of memory loss, i.e. underlying disease, or progressive amnesia, which can lead to serious problems. Both cases require medical intervention, because can cause a person to be intellectually disabled, completely lose their memory, and experience serious complications.

Types of amnesia

Today in medicine, the following types of amnesia and their features are distinguished, namely anterograde, which is associated with the loss of the skill of remembering faces or events, retrograde, characterized by the absence of memories preceding the onset of the disease, traumatic, occurring after a blow, a fall, that is, as a result of injury, fixation, dissociative, resulting from mental trauma, Korsakoff's syndrome, localized, selective, confabulation.

Korsakoff's syndrome occurs as a consequence of vitamin B1 deficiency due to poor diet, excessive alcohol consumption, often after head injuries. Its main symptom is the inability to remember events occurring now while retaining memory for past events.

Localized amnesia can occur with a disorder of one or more memory modalities. It is associated with focal lesions of certain brain regions and is combined with loss of memory for words, loss of motor skills and the ability to recognize objects.

Selective amnesia is the loss of memories for certain events that are mental and stressful.

Dissociative amnesia is characterized by severe consequences caused by the complete loss of the patient's memories of himself and his own biography.

False memories or confabulations are often the most prominent early symptoms. They are associated with impaired memory for nearby events. With the chronic course of the disease, confabulations are less noticeable. A disoriented patient replaces facts of reality that he is unable to remember with imagined or actually happened, but under different circumstances. Such patients can describe imaginary events very convincingly. Since confabulations occur only when other cognitive functions are preserved, in dementia the described symptom will either not appear at all or will be mild.

In addition to the described types of amnesia, it is necessary to highlight such types of amnesia and their features as transient, global and psychogenic amnesia.

The first type is characterized by the sudden onset of deep confusion associated with memory impairment. This state can last from thirty minutes to twelve hours, sometimes more. During the attack, complete disorientation is noted (only orientation in one’s own personality is preserved), which is accompanied by retrograde amnesia, extending to events that occurred in the last years of life. As you recover, retrograde amnesia gradually regresses. In most cases, complete recovery is observed. The cause of the described condition is considered to be transient ischemia, provoking a bilateral dysfunction of the hippocampus or posteromedial thalamus. In relatively young people, the cause may be migraine.

Psychogenic amnesia is characterized by specific features and can affect memories of both recent and distant events. It tends to increase during emotional crises. Memories of distant events are impaired as well as memory of recent events. Often, patients may experience disturbances in self-identification.

Clinical picture, specific manifestations

The danger of progressive amnesia lies in the difficulty of its early diagnosis, since most symptoms are attributed by relatives and the patient himself to age-related forgetfulness.

What are the main points in human behavior that should alert you:

the patient forgets where he lives now if the move took place several years or months ago, and repeatedly calls the address where he lived in his youth;
stops recognizing recent acquaintances - for example, a new doctor or a neighbor in the staircase;
cannot remember events of the recent past - what he did an hour, a day or a week ago.

At the same time, long-standing professional skills are preserved. The ability to read, write, knit, drive a car, or solve complex equations, if these skills were acquired in youth, remains until the last stage of the disease.

As compensation for the loss of short-term memory, the patient “comes to life” old memories - sometimes from distant youth - and even long-lost skills (for example, the ability to sew, knit, acquired in childhood, but lost later). After some time, these skills are also destroyed.

An important sign of progressive amnesia is a disruption in the process of recognizing loved ones.

The patient understands that the person is familiar to him, but cannot understand exactly who it is, and transfers to him the image of relatives and friends from the distant past:

In severe cases and at a late stage of the disease, a person stops recognizing himself in the mirror and begins to talk to himself. Attention drops, the ability to concentrate on current events disappears completely. The sequence of events in life ceases to be perceived adequately. For example, the patient transfers important moments for him that happened in the distant past to the present - for example, he is going to his graduation at the institute (being a seventy-year-old professor).. Adequate perception of space is destroyed:

Adequate perception of space is destroyed:

patients cannot see how far away things, houses, people are;
do not relate objects to each other.

The perception of events becomes fragmented and does not add up to the overall picture, so the patient loses the ability to acquire new skills and create simple logical chains.

In many cases, the patient plunges into early adolescence or childhood, expecting:

the return from work of his father, who died several decades ago;
events that happened in my youth - weddings, trips.

Vicarious perception of surrounding people always occurs at a later stage. The patient sees a mother or sister in a daughter or granddaughter, and friends of his youth in the staff.

In the last stages of progressive amnesia, there is an almost complete collapse of the personality, an inability to care for oneself and death from concomitant diseases - tumors, cardiovascular diseases, chronic inflammatory processes.

What signs are not symptoms of this disease?

Short-term memory impairment due to fatigue, natural forgetfulness, which the patient has always had, cannot be considered symptoms of the initial stage of amnesia.

Absent-mindedness, decreased ability to read and write, loss of fine motor skills, attacks of aggression against the background of the inability to perform the simplest action are not signs of memory loss and belong to other diseases - for example, senile dementia.

Insufficient sleep as a cause of forgetfulness

A common cause of forgetfulness is lack of sleep, and almost everyone is guilty of this now, both students and working people. Many employees of different companies and companies sit at it until late at night, and get up just before dawn in the morning: after all, they still need to get to work - residents of megacities are well aware of this. Even when there is no workload at work, people manage to find themselves a bunch of “urgent” and “urgent” things to do, or they sit too long in front of the TV or computer instead of going to bed.

If this situation is prolonged, the brain does not have enough rest, the ability to react and remember is reduced, so that forgetfulness is a direct consequence of lifestyle. Research in this direction was also carried out, and it turned out that after a week of regular sleep deprivation - less than 6 hours a day - young and healthy subjects began to experience memory loss. Doctors consider this brain reaction to be normal and recommend not to swallow pills (nootropics and antidepressants), but to start going to bed and getting up on time. You shouldn’t be afraid that “extra” sleep will “take up time”: our brain sorts and assimilates information better during sleep, so those whose work involves large amounts of information should definitely get enough sleep.

Why does partial and complete amnesia occur?

There are various classifications of memory pathologies.
Based on the criterion of development speed, acute and progressive amnesia are distinguished. An abrupt loss is caused by a traumatic event: a bruise, a blow. The illness is temporary.

The progressive form occurs due to changes in the functioning of certain brain structures due to age-related changes.

According to the criterion of duration, amnesia is divided into short-term and long-term. Short-term is characterized by the ability to restore lost memories. The patient knows what happened before the event, but cannot describe the traumatic moment.

The reasons for this are psychological and physiological injuries, extreme emotional stress, and head injuries. Events are gradually being restored, starting from the earliest ones. Temporary memory loss occurs due to the effects of psychoactive substances, alcohol, and tranquilizers on brain cells.

Amnesia is often included in a number of symptoms of other diseases:

senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type;
malignant neoplasms in the brain;
shaking palsy;
epilepsy;
HIV infections;
meningitis;
long-term depression.

Long-term loss of the ability to remember is characteristic of a post-traumatic state and senile changes.

The death of brain cells under the influence of toxic substances and medications leads to irreversible consequences, loss of functions of remembering, storing, and reproducing information. Cells die in post-stroke patients with motor amnesia.

According to the criterion of prevalence, amnesia is divided into partial, when fragments of life are lost, and complete, when the patient is disoriented and cannot determine the time, location, or name his data.

All memories for a certain period are erased. The inability to reproduce information is characteristic of dissociative fugue - a severe disorder that occurs after experiencing an extreme situation.

Partial amnesia occurs in epilepsy, when the patient does not directly remember the seizure. One or more modalities are lost (forgetting skills, loss of the ability to recognize people, objects) due to damage to brain cells, the influence of stress, personality traits (hysterical amnesia).

Global amnesia is characterized by confusion of consciousness and develops due to transient ischemia, migraine, and atherosclerosis.

Special reasons for the development of pathology for young and elderly people

Memory loss in senile age is a consequence of atrophic changes in the cerebral cortex.

Amnesia in the elderly is a symptom of presenile dementia, Alzheimer's disease, toxic encephalopathy, and senile dementia. Memory deteriorates gradually and is an irreversible process.

Transient global amnesia combines retrograde and anterograde forms, begins suddenly, lasts about a day. It affects people aged 50 to 70 years. It is assumed that this form is the result of ischemia, migraine, circulatory disorders, convulsive syndrome, and severe psychological stress.

In people of working age, memory is lost due to stroke, vascular diseases, brain injuries, epilepsy, schizophrenia, encephalitis, it can be a consequence of a crisis, or observed during intoxication.

Organic and psychological risk factors

Memory loss occurs in the picture of diseases of the central nervous system and is the result of long-term chronic diseases, brain tumors.

The organic nature of amnesia includes:

traumatic brain injuries;
cerebrovascular accident;
senile dementia;
cognitive impairment;
epilepsy;
cerebral ischemia;
embolism in the upper part of the basilar artery;
cardiovascular diseases;
disruption of the hypothalamus.

The psychological factor occupies a separate place among the causes of memory impairment. Cognitive function is particularly affected by extreme stress, chronic fatigue, deterioration of concentration, thoughtfulness, and an expansive state.

Circadian rhythm disturbance, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and vitamin deficiency (especially vitamin B1), circulatory depression, metabolic problems, intoxication with alcohol and psychoactive substances, binge drinking.

Features of the flow

Psychological

Short-term memory impairment (STM)

In psychology, short-term memory is a memory that has a small volume and is capable of retaining images for a short time - no more than 3 days. After this, the information is subject to processing and goes into the possession of long-term memory. Plays an important role in memorization. If it is violated, the events of the present are poorly recorded. The sufferer cannot learn a quatrain or remember his own daily routine. The main reasons are undeveloped intelligence, stressful situations, overwork, depression, intoxication of the body (alcohol, for example).

Vicarious memory disorders

To improve memory, experts often recommend training its indirect form. For example, to remember a certain event, some kind of “anchor” is reproduced - a smell, an image, a code word, a taste, etc. This technique can be used when learning a foreign language (associating the memorized words with Russian). In some mental pathologies, mediated memory is impaired, and the patient cannot reproduce the intermediate link that would help him remember everything else. Most often this is observed in schizophrenia and rigidity of emotional attitudes.

Age

In children

Mnemonic disorders in a child can most often be caused by two factors: serious somatic illnesses (after trauma, mental retardation or schizophrenia) or disorders of thinking and attention. Sometimes the cause is pedagogical neglect, if it was not developed in accordance with age. Usually, violations are detected in younger schoolchildren: compared to their classmates, such children cannot reproduce poems by heart, cannot retell them, are unable to concentrate in class, and have low intelligence.

The success of the correction directly depends on the reasons. For example, psychotraumatic factors are removed with the help of psychotherapists, somatic ones - through therapeutic treatment, pedagogical ones - with developmental programs.

In adolescence and middle age

Memory impairment during this period occurs, as a rule, as a result of acquired diseases and injuries. Moreover, with age they can become increasingly unstable. That is, during prolonged depression and excessive stress, they become aggravated (short-term memory suffers first of all), and after recovery everything returns to normal.

In old age

Over time, the nervous system and brain undergo natural aging processes. They gradually atrophy, the number of neurons decreases, and the connections between them weaken. This becomes the main cause of mnemonic disorders in old age. However, if you lead a healthy lifestyle and, if possible, avoid traumatic factors, this moment can be delayed.

Fact. The main violations occur after the age of 50 years.

Pathological

For a number of diseases, the most persistent and frequent disorders are diagnosed:

in schizophrenia, types of disorders develop such as hypermnesia, anekphoria, pseudoreminiscences, fixation and progressive amnesia;
for epilepsy and after a stroke - anteroretrograde;
with TBI - retrograde and anterograde.

Experts also note other diseases associated with memory impairment.

Quantitative disorders may be associated with the following pathologies and conditions:

oligophrenia, manic syndrome, drug addiction - hypermnesia;
neurotic disorders, major drug addiction, psychoorganic, paralytic syndromes - hypomnesia;
hypoxia - retrograde memory loss;
Korsakovsky non-alcoholic psychosis, amentive syndrome - anterograde;
stupor, stupor, coma, delirium, oneiric syndrome - congrade;
coma, amentive syndrome, toxic brain damage, stroke - anterograde;
Korsakovsky non-alcoholic psychosis, dementia, paralytic syndrome - fixation;
chronic fatigue syndrome, psychoorganic syndrome, lacunar dementia - anekphoria;
dementia, senile dementia, Pick's and Alzheimer's diseases - progressive;
psychogenic disorders - affectogenic;
hysterical, psychopathic syndrome - hysterical;
alcoholism is a palimpsest.

Qualitative disorders are most often associated with diseases such as:

Korsakovsky non-alcoholic psychosis, dementia - pseudoreminiscences;
Korsakovsky non-alcoholic psychosis - confabulosis;
psychoorganic and paranoid syndromes - cryptomnesia;
psychoorganic syndrome - echonesia;
Depersonalization and derealization personality disorders are phenomena of what has already been seen and heard.

Causes of Memory Loss

All the reasons that provoke the occurrence of memory lapses can be divided into two categories, namely physiological and psychological reasons.

Physiological factors include: injuries, chronic diseases (for example, cardiovascular diseases), various disorders in the brain and disorders of the functioning of the nervous system. Also, this disorder arises as a result of regular lack of sleep, a sedentary lifestyle, improper metabolism, non-compliance with diet, and disruptions in the blood circulation system.

Psychological factors include: daily stressful situations, constant fatigue, lack of attention, expansive states (lethargy or agitation), excessive thoughtfulness. As a result of these factors, the individual switches to mechanical performance of certain essential operations, and they are not remembered at all.

Short-term memory loss can be a manifestation of many different disorders. And the cause of its occurrence is depressive conditions, infectious diseases, various injuries, side effects from the abuse of alcoholic beverages or drugs, taking certain medications, and dyslexia. Among the most common factors that provoke this disorder are: alcoholism, brain tumors, Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and Parkinson's disease, depressive states, stroke, meningitis, human immunodeficiency virus, epilepsy and marasmus.

Also, the interaction of certain medications can cause short-term memory loss, for example, the simultaneous use of Imipramine and Baclofen.

In addition, short-term memory loss can occur due to neurodegenerative diseases, cerebrovascular disorders, skull injuries, normal pressure hydrocephalus, sleep disorders, thyroid pathologies, mental disorders, Wilson's disease.

Short-term amnesia, in turn, can be triggered by a hormonal disorder. Some female representatives of the population may experience cases of short-term amnesia during menopause.

Partial memory loss is a so-called malfunction in the functioning of the brain, characterized by a disorder of spatio-temporal indicators, the integrity of memories and their sequence.

The most common factor provoking partial amnesia is considered to be a dissociative fugue or the state of an individual after a change of residence. For example, partial amnesia may occur as a result of an individual moving to another city. At the same time, events that range from a couple of minutes to several years ago may disappear from memory.

The second cause of this form is considered to be severe mental trauma or shock. The subject loses some biographical information from memory, which triggers negative memories.

In addition, partial amnesia can occur due to the effect of hypnosis on an individual. An individual may not remember what happened to him during hypnotic influence.

Senile memory loss is observed accordingly in older individuals. However, it cannot be considered solely a consequence of age-related changes. More often, senile amnesia occurs due to the lifestyle of individuals. Also, the causes of this form of the disease can be: metabolic disorders, infectious diseases, traumatic brain injuries, poisoning and various brain pathologies.

Memory loss in young people can occur due to chronic lack of sleep or sleep disturbances, lack of vitamin B12 and regular exposure to stress. Young people can also experience memory loss after stress. Often, as a result of suffering a severe emotional shock, young individuals can completely forget all data about themselves.

Finding the Roots of the Problem

The appearance of memory problems in a child is an alarming call. The cause may be either simple fatigue and absent-mindedness, or functional disorders of brain activity. Constant monitoring on the part of parents of the ability to learn and remember new skills is a guarantee of the correct development of the little person.

Whether a child has memory problems can be determined by noting the following behavioral features:

Insufficient adequacy of the baby in communicating with friends;
Difficulties in responding to direct requests;
Problems in completing new tasks;
Complete confusion and misunderstanding in complex matters, an attempt to abandon them;
Problems with attention;
The child cannot apply skills in the instructions given to him.

Problems with learning may be caused by social, hereditary and acquired conditions of memory impairment. Social reasons include family lifestyle, constant lack of necessary foods and vitamins in the baby’s diet. It has a negative impact on development if the child almost never spends time in the fresh air or is not given much exercise; he is left to his own devices.

Hereditary causes include congenital mental retardation. In the case of acquired memory problems, the cause may be mental illness, the consequences of severe brain injury, conditions after a coma, or intoxication.

Partial memory loss is not uncommon after infectious diseases. In most cases, partial memory loss is possible due to a combination of several circumstances: an unfavorable environment in the children's group and at home, anxiety and fears, lack of vitamins.

What it is

Temporary memory loss is called transient (or transient) global amnesia. Usually occurs unexpectedly. This even throws some people into panic. Agree, it is difficult to come to terms with the fact that a young, healthy man in a leadership position completely forgets about a serious report or event that everyone in his company knows and remembers. It’s even worse when you find yourself in complete prostration, you don’t understand where you are and who you are. “Lost” elements can be different: from a name and residential address to small events (meeting, conversation, acquaintance).

This kind of memory loss is called short-term because it lasts for a short period of time. For example, after waking up, you can freeze in prostration for a few seconds. But, as a rule, after looking around, a person quickly comes to his senses, realizes that he is at home, and calms down.

Sometimes memory loss occurs for a few minutes: we forget why we came to the store (to a neighbor, just to another room). Having concentrated, we return everything to normal and remember what exactly we need to buy, ask or take.

In rare cases, it can last several hours. To restore it, you usually have to talk to other eyewitnesses of forgotten events, who help recreate their course, or play some recordings. Sometimes she revives on her own.

The frequency of short-term memory loss is also unpredictable. Some people experience this only once in their entire life. Some - several times a year. But there are those who suffer from such failures much more often. No specialist can tell you with 100% certainty whether this can happen again in a particular case.

Short-term memory loss should not be treated as an accident. Most often, it either becomes the result of serious disorders in the psyche or brain structures, or itself causes irreversible consequences in them.

Treatment

Memory cannot be treated in isolation. First of all, it is necessary to treat the underlying disease that caused dysmnesia or paramnesia. For example, for vascular dementia, tablets are prescribed that stabilize blood pressure and reduce cholesterol levels in the blood. Correction of memory impairment in this case occurs with nootropics.

However, for diseases that are accompanied primarily by memory impairment (Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies), drugs are prescribed to improve cognitive functions, including memory. Drugs: Memantine, Rivastigmine, Donepezil, Galantamine.

Effective Tips to Improve Memory

To avoid unpleasant symptoms, it is important to monitor your health and take preventive measures. It is very important to control your weight, as obesity directly affects brain function and memory.

Therefore, it is recommended to create a balanced diet and use gentle methods of weight loss. Short-term amnesia can occur anywhere and at any time. To refresh your memory in a short period of time, you can try taking a few deep breaths. Such actions put thoughts in order, relax the body and enrich the brain with oxygen, as a result of which the necessary information is “found”. If there is a heavy workload during the day, it is recommended to draw up a rough action plan in writing, which will allow you to remember to pay payments or attend any events. In addition, such records are better stored in the head for a long time. For the same purpose, notes in notebooks help pupils and students remember the answer to the question posed. Mentally imagine the pages of the lecture, and the material will be easier to remember. Help for young parents: start developing memory from a young age in a playful way, so as not to have to deal with treatment in the future. As a result, the child will do what he loves and at the same time improve brain function. Useful activities include putting together puzzles, playing scrabble, finding objects in a room, selecting rhymes, making associative series, etc.

More information in the article about how to improve memory and attention in adults

Kinds

Memory refers to a complex of many human cognitive abilities. A specific part of the brain is responsible for each of them, which allows doctors to quickly determine what kind of problem a person has. The bulk of information is remembered using the cerebral cortex. When it is necessary to quickly store data in the head, the mediobasal system is activated. It is also responsible for the perception and recognition of certain things. The amygdala and cerebellum support procedural memory. The hypothalamus is responsible for storing new information. This is why memory can be selectively erased in the head, which can make the problem seem less significant.

The name of the disease associated with memory loss is amnesia. It is divided into a large number of varieties, depending on the type of memory affected, duration, forgotten events and the speed of the disease. Each of them has its own characteristics of manifestation.

Types of amnesia by memory type:

Short term. With such amnesia, new information that was just perceived by the brain may disappear from memory, which is why the person does not remember what exactly happened in the last minutes or hours.
Long-term. In the case of long-term amnesia, a person suddenly cannot remember what happened some time ago - from a couple of hours to many years.

Types of amnesia by duration:

Temporary. With temporary memory loss, the patient cannot remember the necessary information from his life within a short period of time. After a few hours or days, the memories return in full.
Constant. Complete loss of memory particles is permanent. Such a patient will not be able to recover information from his head on his own.

Types of amnesia by events:

Retrograde. The patient is unable to remember any events that occurred after his memory problems began.
Anterograde. A person who begins to suffer from such amnesia suddenly cannot remember a single event that happened before the first memory problems. New information is assimilated normally. However, such amnesia, as a rule, develops rapidly and turns into a complete loss of memories.
Global. All memory is missing. A person does not remember events that happened earlier and does not remember what is happening now.
Dissociative (selective). The patient is left with an incomplete set of memories, and only the memory associated with a specific event is missing.
Visual. The person does not remember any places or faces, which causes problems with orientation in space and communication with people. The patient often cannot understand where he is and why he is talking to this or that person.

Types of amnesia according to speed of development:

Sudden. Sudden memory loss is associated with one specific moment in life. Occurs after injury or severe stress.
Gradual. A person slowly begins to forget certain things and events. At first, the memories become blurry, and then completely disappear from the head. As a rule, this type of amnesia accompanies senile dementia.

All types of amnesia have been carefully studied by scientists. However, some questions regarding the development and course of the disease still remain open.

Where does it come from?

Western doctors, concerned about the growing number of “forgetful” patients, decided to investigate the problem and found a new type of “disease”. They called it “vanity life syndrome” - how can one not recall the biblical expression “vanity of vanities - all is vanity!”

From a young age, the lives of modern people are filled with many events that happen so quickly that normal memorization becomes impossible. We are bombarded with huge amounts of information: television is no longer what it used to be - hundreds of channels; radio became aggressive due to the flow of advertising and crime news; There is no escape from mobile phones - we are always on a leash.

Why I love my robot vacuum cleaner so much: sharing my own experience

Without the Internet, most people of working age can no longer imagine life: addictions develop, and it is difficult to fight them - for many of us, the use of worldwide networks is directly related to work.

It is not surprising that the brain cannot stand it and begins to block access to information so as not to “boil.” Hence the conclusion: for most people, forgetfulness is not a disease or mental disorder. Experts note that even healthy people are normally prone to forgetting at least 1/10 of all information entering the brain, and today there is so much information that there is no need to talk about the norm.

Impaired short-term memory

Memory functionally and anatomically consists of short-term and long-term components. Short-term memory has a relatively small volume and is designed to retain semantic images of received information for from a few seconds to three days. During this period, information is processed and transferred to long-term memory, which has an almost unlimited capacity.

Short-term memory is the most vulnerable component of the memory system. It plays a key role in remembering. When it is weakened, the ability to record current events is reduced. Such patients develop forgetfulness, making it difficult to perform even simple everyday tasks. The ability to learn is also greatly reduced. Deterioration of short-term memory is observed not only in old age, but also due to overwork, depression, vascular diseases of the brain, intoxication (including regular alcohol abuse).

Temporary amnesia due to severe alcohol intoxication, traumatic brain injury, and other conditions leading to an eclipse of consciousness is also caused by a transient complete shutdown of short-term memory. In this case, events that do not have time to move into long-term memory disappear.

Complete loss of short-term memory (fixation amnesia) is observed in Korsakoff syndrome. Characteristic of dementia and advanced stages of alcoholism. Such patients completely lose the ability to remember current events and are therefore completely socially maladjusted. At the same time, events preceding the onset of fixation amnesia are stored in memory.

Diagnostics

Memory disorders are examined by a psychiatrist or medical psychologist. Diagnosis of memory disorders is an auxiliary component in the diagnosis of the disease as a whole. Research into memory impairment is not a goal, but a means. Memory diagnostics are needed to establish the presence of a particular disease, its stage and dynamics: dementia, the manic phase of bipolar affective disorder or traumatic brain injury.

Tactics for interacting with patients begin with a clinical conversation. The doctor needs to know whether the patient remembers recent events, whether he considers his memory good, whether he remembers events after the acute period of the illness. To ensure the accuracy of the facts, the doctor may ask relatives or friends.

The doctor then uses memory impairment tests. Most popular:

“Learning 10 words”;
“Pictograms” technique;
“Short-term memory capacity”;
“Semantic Memory” technique.