Short-term memory loss: amnesia syndromes, how to recover

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.

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.

Causes of amnesia

Anyone can experience memory loss. There are many reasons for this phenomenon. All of them are characteristic of a certain age, which simplifies the diagnosis by a doctor and the conduct of all examinations.

Causes of amnesia in young people

Most causes of short-term memory loss in young people are due to gradual onset of health problems. Some of them can even lead to a complete loss of the ability to remember information, which makes you think about whether it is worth postponing a visit to the doctor at the first symptoms.

Causes:

Brain tumors. Damage caused by cancer in certain areas of the brain can lead not only to memory loss, but also death. The tumor, increasing in size, begins to put more and more pressure on areas of the brain, which causes such negative consequences as amnesia.
Viral infections. With some infectious diseases (for example, meningitis or encephalitis), a person receives serious damage to brain cells, which also deprives him of many memories.
Thyroid diseases. Many diseases associated with the thyroid gland cause mnemonic problems. Memory loss in this case occurs as a consequence of the actions of autoantibodies or a slowdown in vital body functions. Autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism cause this effect.
Diabetes. All diabetics have a high risk of experiencing memory loss. Firstly, due to a decrease in blood sugar levels, which leads to loss of consciousness and subsequent amnesia caused by a lack of carbohydrates in the brain. Secondly, due to its excess, which disrupts the functioning of blood vessels and sometimes leads to their destruction. Both options cause unexpected amnesia.
Multiple sclerosis. With this disease, the level of myelin, which is responsible for creating the protective sheath of nerve tissue, decreases. When the problem affects the areas where the neurons associated with memory are located, the person loses memories.
Depression. All people suffering from depression have problems concentrating and remembering new information, which causes memory impairment.

All these reasons, as a rule, concern young people. However, this does not exclude the possibility that an elderly person or child will encounter any of them.

Almost every cause has a significant impact on health and can lead to serious complications.

Causes of amnesia in older people

Old age means an increased risk of memory problems. In old age, people are susceptible to many diseases that are dangerous to their health. Some of them have a direct impact on the function of remembering information. There are three main illnesses that can cause amnesia in older adults. That is why it is important to take especially good care of your health after 60.

Causes:

Senile dementia. Gradually, with age, the quality of brain cells decreases, but sometimes even other diseases can cause their condition to deteriorate. In this case, difficulties inevitably arise with remembering new information or trying to remember something from the past.
Hypertension. Attacks of sudden increases in blood pressure cause health problems, including memory loss.
Stroke. Damage to blood vessels during a stroke is accompanied by a serious lack of oxygen in brain cells. With such a problem, a person may forget many events that happened to him earlier.
Alzheimer's disease. Patients suffer from the slow destruction of all cells of the nervous system, and the first symptom of the disease is memory loss. As the disease progresses, the old man may completely forget everything he has ever known.

Older adults should visit their healthcare provider regularly to reduce the risk of such problems and to receive timely treatment for any medical conditions.

Amnesia occurs very quickly in older people and progresses at an accelerated rate.

Causes of amnesia in children

Children's bodies are also susceptible to memory problems. They are typically caused by congenital conditions or difficult births, but there are a number of other causes of memory loss in children.

Causes:

Exhaustion of the nervous system. Disturbances in the functioning of the central nervous system caused by health problems.
Congenital mental retardation and other diseases. Some children are born with pathologies. Most often they have congenital retardation, tumors or problems with the central nervous system.
Circulatory disorders in the brain. In some pathologies, disruptions occur in the circulatory system.
Head injuries. Any injury to the brain can contribute to amnesia. This also applies to cases where a child is injured during childbirth.
Mental illnesses. They can appear already in the first years of life. Many can negatively affect the ability to remember information.

Any child can also suffer from the classic diseases that cause memory problems in adults.

In case of complications, when the child’s memory is not restored, there is a risk of impossibility of his social adaptation and serious delay in development. In special cases, children may remain disabled and require 24-hour assistance.

Causes not related to pathologies

There are a number of factors that can cause permanent or short-term memory loss. They concern absolutely all people, regardless of gender and age. Therefore, you should pay special attention to them. Many factors are part of life for some people, which carry additional risks.

Causes:

Alcohol abuse;
Drug use;
Taking medications that have a strong effect on the brain or nervous system;
Receiving a traumatic brain injury (with a TBI, memory can be completely lost);
Surgical operations performed;
Incorrectly composed diet;
Regular stressful situations;
Menopause period;
Poor quality sleep;
Poor eyesight;
Hypnotic state.

To eliminate unnecessary risks, it is enough to lead a healthy lifestyle and monitor your well-being.

If you receive a traumatic brain injury during an accident, when there is a strong blow and concussion, there is a high probability of losing your memory forever. Coma following injury also carries an increased risk.

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.

Classification of pathological conditions

Amnesia is the inability to remember events and recall necessary information in memory. This condition may appear suddenly or gradually.

Let's list the forms of amnesia:

Retrograde . Memories that preceded a certain event are erased. Such a period may last a long time or a short time. Memories of what is happening are gradually resumed, starting with the most distant processes. There is likely to be a complete loss of information about what occurred before the injury.
Anerograde . Difficulties in the processes of memorization and reproduction begin from the period when the pathology begins to develop; events that occur before this are not affected. There is likely to be a complete loss of information about what happened before such a trauma.
Kogradnaya . When the patient loses consciousness, no information is recorded.

Completely transient . Expressed in the lack of ability to remember specific events. During such an attack, a person’s behavior may not differ from usual; gradually he is asked questions about what happened a couple of minutes ago. Problems with self-identity often arise.
Psychogenic . Occurs as a result of alcohol intoxication, violence, schizophrenia, and trauma during a natural disaster. It is difficult for the patient to reproduce data about himself. Often patients at a young age are susceptible to the disease.
Transient global . Refers to elderly patients; attacks can last up to several hours and occur up to 5 times a year. The reasons have not been fully studied. During the attack, the ability to orientate deteriorates; the same question is asked to the person several times in a row.

Progressive . Occurs in various types of dementia, Alzheimer's disorder. Memory deteriorates gradually and completely. At the first stages, absent-mindedness and forgetfulness occur, after which the patient forgets what has happened recently, then does not remember processes that took place a long time ago.
Dissociative is a defensive reaction of the psyche; problems arise with memory from the recent past, caused by a stressful situation. It is difficult to reproduce individual biographical facts.
Korsakoff's syndrome with characteristic long-term memory loss that develops against the background of alcoholism after regular stress to the vessels of the nervous system.

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 and types of memory loss

A disease characterized by memory lapses is called amnesia. Based on the surviving information, there are several types of human memory disorders:

full;
partial;
localized.

Complete memory loss develops against the background of psychological and physical trauma, as a result of which the elements that retain information are destroyed. This condition is characterized by a complete absence of memories for a certain period of time.

Poor circulation and oxygen starvation cause partial memory loss. With this mental disorder, only some memories are missing: the person forgets some events and skills from his life, incoherent images from the past remain, which the patient cannot determine in a time frame.

This condition occurs due to damage to the cerebral cortex: stroke, infections, tumors. Inadequate nutritional intake during a crash diet also contributes to the development of memory loss.

Localized loss of memories occurs against the background of psychological trauma, as a result the person loses one of the skills: for example, speech.

If short-term loss of memories is caused by taking medications or overwork, then to restore it it is enough to remove the provoking factors.

Short-term memory loss after depression

Stress, trauma and nervous tension cause changes in the cerebral cortex: neural connections are disrupted, perception and processing of information deteriorates. It becomes difficult for a person to fix his attention on any object or specific event.

Overwork often leads to depression, weakening of the body's protective functions, and endocrine diseases. The impact of these unfavorable factors entails disruption of the growth of nerve cells, some of them are damaged, and then short-term memory loss develops.

The more a person is in a stressful situation, the more extensive the disruption in the body’s functioning: not only the ability to remember, but also other functions suffers.

Memory loss after alcohol

Alcohol abuse and drug use lead to toxic poisoning. Since the body devotes all its efforts to restoring basic vital functions, the brain ceases to receive a sufficient amount of nutrients.

Smoking also adversely affects the ability to remember: when cigarette smoke enters the lungs, normal oxygen absorption is disrupted and vasospasm occurs. Due to oxygen starvation, the nerve tissue of the brain is destroyed, and temporary loss of memories occurs.

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.

Treatment of temporary amnesia

Therapy includes adherence to a diet, the use of medications, and physical exercise. The doctor is chosen depending on the cause of memory loss:

diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system are treated by a neurologist;
an endocrinologist deals with hormonal imbalance;
stress, depression - psychologist or psychiatrist;
sleep disorder is treated by a somnologist;
natural aging processes - gerontologist;
restoration of the body after hypovitaminosis and exhaustion is carried out by a nutritionist or therapist;
restoration of the body after metabolic disorders is carried out by a therapist and endocrinologist.

In order to correctly determine the cause of amnesia and begin treatment, before visiting a specialist doctor, it is necessary to take tests and undergo instrumental examination methods.

Drug treatment

To restore memory and brain functionality, it is recommended to use the following drugs:

nootropics, with the help of which more blood containing useful substances and oxygen enters the brain;
neuroprotectors that protect nervous tissue from damage (Cerebrolysin);
drugs that enhance memory function (Glycine);
B vitamins;
antioxidants;
sedatives.

Drugs are used that treat the underlying disease. For example, with atherosclerosis, the amount of blood entering the brain decreases. Cholesterol-lowering drugs are used to increase blood flow.

The brain will function normally if its circulatory function is sufficiently developed. Therefore, before carrying out treatment, the doctor identifies the presence of coronary disease, atherosclerosis, thrombosis, and complications from diabetes.

Diet

A patient suffering from memory problems must consume all foods containing vitamins, microelements, nutrients, minerals, and amino acids. The diet includes fish, meat, fruits, vegetables, and herbs. If the body does not have enough vitamin B12, which is necessary for the normal functioning of the brain, multivitamins are prescribed.

Interesting: Registration of disability after a stroke, procedure, groups

Preventive actions

After 50 years, memory function deteriorates. Therefore, it is recommended at this age to begin preventive measures that enhance short-term memorization:

solving crosswords, puzzles;
Reading books;
memorizing poetry;
counting from 1 to 100, and in reverse order;
constant work, even in old age;
age-appropriate physical activity (walking, swimming, jogging);
taking multivitamins;
proper nutrition with reduced amounts of sugar and cholesterol.

People over 50 years of age need to visit doctors periodically. If blood pressure increases or decreases, limbs become numb, this is the first sign of vascular disorders. If the flow of blood and oxygen into the brain is impeded, short-term recording of information is reduced, which leads to memory loss. If the disease is in the initial stages, medications are prescribed for the treatment and prevention of diseases.

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.

Classification

Memory lapses can be of different types, and depending on this, doctors distinguish the following types of amnesia:

Retrograde amnesia. It is characterized by a “loss” from the memory of all events in a person’s life that happened to him before the onset of the disease.
Anterograde amnesia. A condition in which a person clearly remembers all events from the past, but does not remember those that occur in the present.
Fixation amnesia. Characterized by loss of ability to remember current events.
Dissociative amnesia. With this type of memory loss, a person retains his ability to learn, but has difficulty remembering events that happen in his life.
Transient global amnesia. Temporary memory loss, in which a person “falls out” of certain events from his head. Global amnesia most often occurs against the background of cardiovascular or ischemic lesions. In this case, the inability to perceive and reproduce information persists for up to 12 hours. During the onset of an attack of memory loss, complete disorientation is recorded, the person forgets about the events that have occurred over the past few years in his life.
Childhood amnesia. This is a condition in which a child cannot remember events occurring in his life and knowledge, which is caused by imperfect development of the parts of the brain responsible for these functions.
Alcohol amnesia. It is expressed by symptoms of memory impairment, a complete or partial inability to reconstruct “in the head” events that occur under the influence of alcohol intoxication.
Psychogenic amnesia. Characterized by a sudden loss of the ability to recall important information concerning oneself. At the same time, the ability to learn new information is not impaired.
Selective amnesia. A condition in which a person selectively stores in memory events that occurred over a certain period of time.
Traumatic amnesia. It is a consequence of experienced traumas and is characterized by partial or complete memory loss. They may relate to personal biography or certain events.

In addition, amnesia has several more subtypes:

Localized - memory lapses in which a person cannot remember the names of certain objects, as well as the meaning of some words. In this case, there may be a loss of motor skills and retardation.
Generalized – complete memory loss that does not respond to any treatment. When it occurs, a person forgets about the events taking place in his life for the rest of his life.
Hysterical amnesia - this condition occurs in severe mental illness and is characterized by selective loss of unpleasant events or unfavorable circumstances for a person.

There is also the concept of “paramnesia”. This is a condition characterized by false memories of past events. Moreover, they are, as a rule, the very first and most pronounced symptoms of amnesia. The reproduction of false information in the brain is caused by memory impairment for nearby events. When the disease becomes chronic, the symptoms become less pronounced.

Important! The peculiarity of people who suffer from paramnesia is that they can describe imaginary events very convincingly. At the same time, they themselves believe in what they say, despite the fact that those around them say the opposite.

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.

The main causes of the pathological process

How can you get amnesia? First of all, it is worth considering the reasons that most often lead to the development of violations of this type. Very often, memory loss occurs due to serious traumatic brain injury. Most often, after a strong blow, a person does not remember what happened earlier. At the same time, he knows his name and can normally navigate in space. More serious amnesia can develop with cancer. Often the tumor begins to compress the neurons of the brain. In this case, amnesia develops with accompanying symptoms. The patient may not understand who he is or where he is.

Is it possible to get amnesia on purpose? There is such a possibility. Anyone can lose their memory due to intoxication. Many people have had to deal with amnesia due to alcohol intoxication. It is worth remembering that such experiments are quite dangerous for the body.

Long-term memory loss can develop due to neurological diseases. Thus, amnesia is often diagnosed with epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, etc. Memory loss can also be diagnosed against the background of serious psychological trauma (rape, death of a loved one, traffic accident, etc.).

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.

Methods of achieving

There are several techniques to induce memory loss, called experimental:

Pharmacological (introduction of pharmacological agents into the body).
Physical (exposure to electric current).
Biological (hypoxia).

Pharmacological effects

There are groups of medications that can cause the disappearance of the ability to remember and reproduce already learned information.

So, drugs that cause amnesia:

hypnotics (mainly GABA receptor agonists);
anxiolytics (better known as tranquilizers);
antidepressants (mostly “big” ones);
beta blockers;
statins.

There are other drugs (interferons, antiparkinsonian drugs, glucocorticosteroids, antihistamines (anti-allergenic), drugs) that cause amnesia. They can also impair memory, but this effect is less common for these drugs, so they are not used to put the subject into a state of amnesia.

The main effect of hypnotics (zopiclone, zolpidem) is a delay in excitation in neurons and a predominance of inhibition. Thus, there is a deterioration in the reverberation of the impulse along the chain of nerve cells and a disruption in the interactions between short-term and long-term types of memory.

Anxiolytics (mainly benzodiazepines: diazepam, phenazepam) suppress the functioning of the subcortical structures of the central nervous system, including the limbic system.

The hippocampus, which is a structural unit of the limbic system, is recognized as the main long-term “storage” of the brain. Due to the suppression of the hippocampus, it is not able to receive nerve impulses to “deposit” information for a long time.

Tricyclic “major” antidepressants (amitriptyline, imipramine) block muscarinic acetylcholine receptors , so their use can cause amnesia.

The mechanism of memory impairment when using beta-blockers (metoprolol, propanolol) is associated with the fact that beta-blockers block the connection of epinephrine (adrenaline) with receptors, which can lead to memory problems.

The main effect of statins (atorvastatin, rosuvastatin) is to reduce cholesterol levels. Since cholesterol is an integral part of the brain, its decrease can lead to pathologies of the nervous system, including amnesia.

Electroconvulsive shock (therapy)

This method allows you to erase memories and make it impossible to remember for a period of up to 7 months . To induce amnesia, electrodes should be placed on both sides of the head, and charges should be given that exceed the subject's convulsive threshold.

Hypoxia

With insufficient oxygen supply to the central nervous system, dysfunction occurs, and then the “dying” of cells, which will lead to disconnection of the passage of nerve impulses between the cortex and subcortical formations (hippocampus), as a result of which memorization will be impaired, as well as the ability to remember past events.

Find out more about dissociative (psychogenic) and other groups of amnesias:

about hysterical and progressive memory loss and their causes;
about post-hypnotic amnesia and its purposes;
about dissociative fugue and its manifestations;
about Korsakoff's syndrome - alcoholic and non-alcoholic.