Common Causes Of Amnesia

Amnesia is a medical condition involving memory loss. The subtypes of amnesia generally fit into two main categories known as anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde means the patient has problems with forming new memories, and retrograde means the patient has forgotten past events. Both anterograde and retrograde amnesia have a wide variety of causes, but the root is usually some kind of brain damage. Amnesia sometimes goes away after a time but in many cases is devastatingly permanent. Even if it is not accompanied by other symptoms of brain damage, amnesia can severely affect a patient's quality of life. Get to know the causes of amnesia in detail now.

Traumatic Head Injuries

Amnesia that occurs after traumatic head injuries is known as post-traumatic amnesia. A traumatic head injury may occur due to a motor vehicle accident, fall, act of violence, or sports-related accident. Immediately following a traumatic brain injury, the patient often loses consciousness. They may have a concussion. In some cases, a weapon or debris from an accident may end up embedded in the skull, causing direct damage to the brain. The seriousness of post-traumatic amnesia depends on which part of the brain is injured and how severe the injury is. Some individuals make a full recovery, while others may have permanent memory loss. Patients with traumatic head injuries usually have to go through rehabilitation to help them regain their cognitive functions.

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Dementia

Dementia is a group of related diseases involving damage to the nervous system and typically get progressively worse. These diseases are most common in elderly adults. The most well-known type of dementia is Alzheimer's disease; other types include Lewy body and vascular dementia. There are many symptoms, ranging from motor coordination problems to hallucinations. However, the most striking feature of this condition is the amnesia associated with it. Short-term memory is often the first to go. Patients have trouble remembering what they did a few minutes or seconds ago, and it interferes with their ability to perform routine tasks. Devastatingly, as the illness progresses, many patients forget important information about their own lives including the names and faces of loved ones.

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Stroke

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain hemorrhages or gets blocked. This causes a lack of oxygen to part of the brain, resulting in the death of brain cells. Depending on which part of the brain is affected, amnesia may result. Various types of amnesia are possible, including visual, verbal, and informational amnesia. Visual amnesia, as its name suggests, has to do with forgetting what things look like. For instance, someone who suffers from visual amnesia might forget what their loved ones' faces look like. Verbal amnesia has to do with forgetting names and other linguistic information about the world. It can make it difficult to speak fluently. Informational amnesia can make it difficult for the patient to remember how to do tasks or to learn new concepts. After suffering from brain damage, most patients go to rehabilitation to relearn how to do everyday things they have trouble with. Amnesia sometimes improves after months or years of rehabilitation, but improvement is not guaranteed.

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Anoxia

Anoxia is a condition in which an organ does not get any oxygen for a certain period. When the affected organ is the brain or part of the brain, it is referred to as cerebral anoxia or anoxic brain injury. Permanent neurological damage often occurs from this. There are many possible causes of a lack of oxygen in the brain, including various lung diseases, severe anemia, hemorrhaging, carbon monoxide poisoning, and cardiac arrest. It can also occur if someone is in an environment where there is simply not enough oxygen in the air, such as at very high altitudes or underwater. Amnesia is a common result of the brain damage that occurs when the brain does not get enough oxygen. Whether a patient regains normal memory function depends on how severe the anoxic brain injury is. If the damage is mild, the patient may actually make a full recovery. However, many patients' prognoses are very poor.

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Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy gets a bad reputation from movies that dramatize it, but it is actually recognized as a very effective treatment for mental illness. Patients normally undergo electroconvulsive therapy voluntarily. Although the treatment is very helpful for most individuals with depression, it comes with some side effect, one of which is amnesia. In particular, anterograde amnesia is common, but retrograde amnesia can also occur. Luckily, the anterograde memory loss caused by electroconvulsive therapy is often temporary. Within a few weeks, many patients regain their full ability to create new memories. However, patients may have permanent retrograde amnesia, meaning they may forget what happened in the few weeks surrounding their treatment. These memories may never come back to them.