Something about Amnestic Disorders

Amnestic disorders are like an umbrella term for the kind of disorders that involve loss of memory. In these disorders, the person loses the ability to remember memories that had hitherto been created. Moreover, he/she loses the capability to create newer memories with time to come.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ends up defining this category of disorders as being caused due to two basic causes – generalized medical conditions which end up producing disturbances in memory; and the second is the over exposure to a certain chemical, which could be in the form of medication, drug abuse or some form of environmental toxin.

Brief Overview –

Amnestic disorders generally get characterized by a person’s problems with the effective functioning of memory. This would include a range of telling signs, or symptoms as they’re called, which would end up telling you about the severity of the issue at hand. In some cases, people will have difficulty in remembering an event that had taken place; and in other cases, people might not remember how to conduct tasks that they may have performed easily before the amnestic disorder took over. This kind of ‘amnesia’ is dubbed as retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia would involve the inability of a person to learn a new trick or retain new memories.

Very rarely will a person suffering from an amnestic disorder actually forget his/her own identity. That kind of severity of memory loss is generally seen in the case of dissociative disorders.

Causes of amnestic disorders –

In most cases, amnestic disorders will have something to do with a structural (or in some cases, chemical) damage that has occurred in some part of the brain. The person will have difficulty in remembering events that have happened in the past; and this loss of memory will depend on the severity of the damage caused to his/her brain.

As a general medical condition, amnestic disorders could result from tumors, a stroke, and trauma to the head or cerebrovascular diseases (the kinds that affect the blood vessels of the brain).

Substance-induced amnestic disorder is one form of amnestic disorders. In this case, the person might end up losing memory owing to prolonged exposure to and consumption of alcohol; or due to drug abuse. This would also include exposure to toxins which might include the likes of carbon monoxide, mercury, lead and certain kinds of insecticides.

Korsakoff’s syndrome, which is a vitamin deficiency linked to alcoholism, is said to be at the root of alcohol induced amnestic disorders.

The causes underlying transient global amnesia still continue to be unclear.

Symptoms –

People suffering from amnestic disorders end up disoriented time and again; especially with regards to space and time. For instance, they might find it extremely difficult to part with information like where they are at the moment; or what day of the week it is.

Most amnestic disorder patients might end up losing memory without realizing it. Basically, it goes to say that, they lack awareness of what is happening to their systems. By those means, they generally end up denying that something is wrong with them; or that their memory is failing them. As they see it, everything’s perfectly fine with them.

Some people suffering from such disorders might actually undergo a change in personality as well. A rather talkative person, once affected by such disorders, might end up appearing rather bland or apathetic. The basic distinctive characteristics that they possessed earlier will now appear to have disappeared out of their lives.