What Is Amnesia?
Amnesia is a condition which can define by the loss of memory
which can last for two hours or sometimes two months or more.
This loss of memory can be due to some disturbing, appalling,
psychological experience or brain injury or emotional chain of
events. There are different reasons and causes of amnesia such
as organic or functional. Organic amnesia is caused due to
damage to your brain by external factors which can be due to
physical reasons like trauma or disease. Functional amnesia is
due to psychological factors.
There are different types of Amnesia
Anterograde amnesia - In this kind of amnesia the patient loses
all its senses and is far away from remembering the current
events after the trauma or disease affected the patient.
Emotional/hysterical amnesia - This can be said as the temporary
condition which wont be lasting for a long time and is basically
caused by psychological trauma.
Lacunar amnesia - This state of amnesia creates a blockage in
your mind for a specific event.
Korsakoff syndrome - This is caused due to the constant intake
of alcohol and can also be said as the state of alcoholism.
Posthypnotic amnesia - This kind of amnesia is due to the
prolonged hypnotic state which keeps your mind unfit to remember
the events which happened during hypnosis as well as information
have been part of your long-term memory.
Retrograde amnesia - It is a sequence of loss events which took
place before the onset of trauma or disease causing amnesia.
Transient global amnesia - This kind of amnesia occurs to people
who are middle-aged or elderly and it is short term memory loss
lasting for few minutes.
Causes of Amnesia
There are many reasons which can be the cause of amnesia and
these are some of them
* Head injury * Severe illness * High fever * Seizures *
Emotional shock or hysteria * Alcohol-related brain damage *
Drugs * Stroke * Alzheimer's disease * Brain surgery
The common factor in all the above causes is that it has
affected the brain in some or the other manner. As there is
damage to the brain cells and deterioration of cells causes the
loss of memory. Brain injury can happen due to some berserk car
accident or due to some fall or a blow on your head. Alzheimer
sufferers are the worst hit with memory loss as it is the first
thing which the disease hits upon. Firstly they would loose
memory on the current events and later in the advanced stages of
Alzheimer the long term memory is affected.
Amnesia can be prevented when all kind of brain damages are
avoided and prevented. This would mean all the common sense
precautions should be taken which would lead to damage to your
brain such as wearing helmet, using seat belt as well as
avoiding the use of alcohol and drugs. A healthy and fit body
will have less of damages due to strokes or seizures which occur
due to the blockages in your heart. This happens due to improper
diet and your body being treated as a junkyard of junk food.
Treatment of amnesia depends upon the cause of amnesia and on
that basis diagnosis is done. If it is a brain injury due to
some physical causes like accident or fall then it has to be
treated immediately by the doctor. Emotional trauma can be cured
or helped through psychotherapy. Hypnosis has played an active
role in getting people's memory back. Medicines have been an
important factor in helping people out.