Amnesia: Difference between revisions

Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 73: Line 73:
[[Category:Neurology]]
[[Category:Neurology]]
[[Category:Psychiatry]]
[[Category:Psychiatry]]
[[Category:Mature chapter]]
[[Category:Overview complete]]


[[ar:نسيان]]
[[ar:نسيان]]

Revision as of 16:40, 3 August 2011

For patient information click here

Amnesia
ICD-10 R41.3
ICD-9 780.9, 780.93
MedlinePlus 003257
MeSH D000647

WikiDoc Resources for Amnesia

Articles

Most recent articles on Amnesia

Most cited articles on Amnesia

Review articles on Amnesia

Articles on Amnesia in N Eng J Med, Lancet, BMJ

Media

Powerpoint slides on Amnesia

Images of Amnesia

Photos of Amnesia

Podcasts & MP3s on Amnesia

Videos on Amnesia

Evidence Based Medicine

Cochrane Collaboration on Amnesia

Bandolier on Amnesia

TRIP on Amnesia

Clinical Trials

Ongoing Trials on Amnesia at Clinical Trials.gov

Trial results on Amnesia

Clinical Trials on Amnesia at Google

Guidelines / Policies / Govt

US National Guidelines Clearinghouse on Amnesia

NICE Guidance on Amnesia

NHS PRODIGY Guidance

FDA on Amnesia

CDC on Amnesia

Books

Books on Amnesia

News

Amnesia in the news

Be alerted to news on Amnesia

News trends on Amnesia

Commentary

Blogs on Amnesia

Definitions

Definitions of Amnesia

Patient Resources / Community

Patient resources on Amnesia

Discussion groups on Amnesia

Patient Handouts on Amnesia

Directions to Hospitals Treating Amnesia

Risk calculators and risk factors for Amnesia

Healthcare Provider Resources

Symptoms of Amnesia

Causes & Risk Factors for Amnesia

Diagnostic studies for Amnesia

Treatment of Amnesia

Continuing Medical Education (CME)

CME Programs on Amnesia

International

Amnesia en Espanol

Amnesia en Francais

Business

Amnesia in the Marketplace

Patents on Amnesia

Experimental / Informatics

List of terms related to Amnesia

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Overview

Amnesia (from Greek Template:Polytonic) is a condition in which memory is disturbed. The causes of amnesia are organic or functional. In simple terms it is the loss of memory. Organic causes include damage to the brain, through trauma or disease, or use of certain (generally sedative) drugs. Functional causes are psychological factors, such as defense mechanisms. Hysterical post-traumatic amnesia is an example of this. Amnesia may also be spontaneous, in the case of transient global amnesia[1]. This global type of amnesia is more common in middle-aged to elderly people, particularly males, and usually lasts less than 24 hours.

Another effect of amnesia is the inability to imagine the future. A recent study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that amnesiacs with damaged hippocampus cannot imagine the future[2]. This is because when a normal human being imagines the future, they use their past experiences to construct a possible scenario. For example, a person who would try to imagine what would happen at a party that would occur in the near future would use their past experience at parties to help construct the event in the future.

Forms of amnesia

  • In anterograde amnesia, new events contained in the immediate memory are not transferred to the permanent as long-term memory. The sufferer will not be able to remember anything that occurs after the onset of this type of amnesia for more than a brief period following the event.
  • Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall some memory or memories of the past, beyond ordinary forgetfulness.
The terms are used to categorize patterns of symptoms, rather than to indicate a particular cause or etiology. Both categories of amnesia can occur together in the same patient, and commonly result from drug effects or damage to the brain regions most closely associated with episodic/declarative memory: the medial temporal lobes and especially the hippocampus.
An example of mixed retrograde and anterograde amnesia may be a motorcyclist unable to recall driving his motorbike prior to his head injury (retrograde amnesia), nor can he recall the hospital ward where he is told he had conversations with family over the next two days (anterograde amnesia).

Types/Causes of amnesia

  • Post-traumatic amnesia is generally due to a head injury (e.g. a fall, a knock on the head). Traumatic amnesia is often transient, but may be permanent of either anterograde, retrograde, or mixed type. The extent of the period covered by the amnesia is related to the degree of injury and may give an indication of the prognosis for recovery of other functions. Mild trauma, such as a car accident that results in no more than mild whiplash, might cause the occupant of a car to have no memory of the moments just before the accident due to a brief interruption in the short/long-term memory transfer mechanism. The sufferer may also lose knowledge of who people are, they may remember events, but will not remember faces of them.
  • Dissociative Amnesia results from a psychological cause as opposed to direct damage to the brain caused by head injury, physical trauma or disease, which is known as organic amnesia. Dissociative Amnesia can include:
  • Repressed memory refers to the inability to recall information, usually about stressful or traumatic events in persons' lives, such as a violent attack or rape. The memory is stored in long term memory, but access to it is impaired because of psychological defense mechanisms. Persons retain the capacity to learn new information and there may be some later partial or complete recovery of memory. This contrasts with e.g. anterograde amnesia caused by amnestics such as benzodiazepines or alcohol, where an experience was prevented from being transferred from temporary to permanent memory storage: it will never be recovered, because it was never stored in the first place. Formerly known as "Psychogenic Amnesia"
  • Dissociative Fugue (formerly Psychogenic Fugue) is also known as fugue state. It is caused by psychological trauma and is usually temporary, unresolved and therefore may return. The Merck Manual defines it as "one or more episodes of amnesia in which the inability to recall some or all of one's past and either the loss of one's identity or the formation of a new identity occur with sudden, unexpected, purposeful travel away from home" [3]. While popular in fiction, it is extremely rare.
  • Posthypnotic amnesia is where events during hypnosis are forgotten, or where past memories are unable to be recalled.
  • Childhood amnesia (also known as infantile amnesia) is the common inability to remember events from one's own childhood. Whilst Sigmund Freud attributed this to sexual repression, others have theorised that this may be due to language development or immature parts of the brain.
  • Transient global amnesia is a well-described medical and clinical phenomenon. This form of amnesia is distinct in that abnormalities in the hippocampus can sometimes be visualized using a special form of magnetic resonance imaging of the brain known as diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Symptoms typically last for less than a day and there is often no clear precipitating factor nor any other neurological deficits. The cause of this syndrome is not clear, hypotheses include transient reduced blood flow, possible seizure or an atypical type of migraine. Patients are typically amnestic of events more than a few minutes in the past, though immediate recall is usually preserved.
  • Source amnesia is a memory disorder in which someone can recall certain information, but they do not know where or how they obtained the information.
  • Blackout phenomenon can be caused by excessive short-term alcohol consumption, with the amnesia being of the anterograde type.
  • Korsakoff's syndrome can result from long-term alcoholism or malnutrition. It is caused by brain damage due to a Vitamin B1 deficiency and will be progressive if alcohol intake and nutrition pattern are not modified. Other neurological problems are likely to be present in combination with this type of Amnesia. Korsakoff's syndrome is also known to be connected with confabulation.

See also

References

Template:Cognition, perception, emotional state and behaviour symptoms and signs

ar:نسيان bs:Amnezija da:Amnesi de:Amnesie et:Amneesia eo:Amnezio kk:Амнезия ko:기억 상실 hr:Amnezija it:Amnesia he:אמנזיה ku:Amnezî hu:Amnézia id:Amnesia nl:Geheugenverlies nn:Amnesi qu:Pusullu simple:Amnesia sk:Amnézia sr:Амнезија fi:Amnesia sv:Amnesi uk:Амнезія Template:SIB Template:WH Template:WS