Disorders Of memory

• Memory: an active system that receives

information from the senses, organizes and
alters it as it stores it away, and then retrieves
the information from storage.
 Types of memory
• Short-term memory (STM, also known as working memory) – these are
thoughts that are temporary, usually lasting between 10-30 seconds. The
frontal and parietal lobes of the brain are mostly responsible for STM.

• Long-term memory (LTM) – thoughts that last beyond a minute or longer

becomes an LTM. This is usually when the STM has been paid attention
to so it can be processed deeper. The hippocampus and the temporal
lobes are responsible for LTM. There are two types of LTM: implicit
(procedural) and explicit (declarative).

• Sensory memory – this type of memory lasts for less than a second. This
includes visual, auditory, and tactile sensory input that is briefly attended
to and mostly forgotten or is passed on for further processing.
 Quantative disorders:

• Hypomnesia-decreasing of memory
• Hypermnesia-increasing of memory
• Amnesia-loss of memory
• Paramnesia-memory distortion
 Hypomnesia
It is general weakening of memory. In this case the
patient remembers new names, dates, with
difficulty and forgets details about events. The
patients have to write the important information to
remember them, with out these notes they cannot
remember. During reading a book, he has to return
at previous pages to remember and connect what
he is reading now. Hypomnesia is related to broad
spectrum organic diseases of brain (basically
vascular)
 Hypermnesia
It is a nonproductive, some unfairly actualization of
past experiences. A flood of memory about
accidentally occurred situations which had negligible
affect on life, does not improve productivity of
thinking, but merely distracts the patient and disturbs
him to obtain new information. Hypermnesia is seen
in mania episodes or sometimes is seen in disorders
of consciousness. It is also observed in case of intake
of psychotropic drugs (marijuana, LSD, opioids), or
accompanied by epileptic paroxysm.
Amnesia
• Amnesia is a memory disorder where by
people find it difficult to remember past
experiences, form new memories, or both.
People with amnesia may find it hard to recall
memories such as facts, information, and
experiences, but they may also find difficulty
in memorising new information and imagining
the future.
 Anterograde amnesia
• If someone has anterograde amnesia, it means that
they cannot remember new information. The person is
able to remember information and events that have
happened before the onset of amnesia, but things that
happened more recently and information that should
be stored in STM disappears.
• The effect of this type of amnesia can be temporary
such as when experiencing a blackout from consuming
too much alcohol. It can also be permanent if the
hippocampus becomes damaged, an area of the brain
which plays a significant role in forming memories.
 Retrograde amnesia
• In contrast to anterograde amnesia, someone with retrograde
amnesia will be unable to remember old memories. In this
instance, they cannot remember the events that occurred
before the onset of their amnesia, but they can remember
what happened afterwards. They will essentially lose their
existing, previously made memories.

• This type of amnesia tends to affect the most recently formed

memories first, so the events immediately leading up to the
onset of amnesia will likely be forgotten first. Whereas older
memories such as those from childhood are usually affected
more slowly.
 Transient global amnesia
• Transient global amnesia is when someone
has a temporary loss of all memory, and in
severe cases, difficulty forming new
memories. This type of amnesia is very
rare and is likely to occur in older adults
with vascular disease. It is a sudden and
temporary memory loss which can last
between one to ten hours.

• When experiencing transient global

amnesia, a person cannot make new
memories or recall events during the
period of amnesia. They can remember
deeply ingrained information such as who
they are and who their family is but are
often unaware of where they are and what
day, time, or month it is.
 Post-traumatic amnesia
• Someone experiencing traumatic
amnesia suffers memory loss as a result
of a hard blow to the head. They may
have difficulty remembering events from
minutes to hours ago, feel disorientated
to time and where they are, and they
may not understand what has happened
to them.

• The person may experience a brief loss

of consciousness or a coma prior to the
amnesia. If someone experiences
amnesia after trauma to the head, this
may be an indicator that they are having
a concussion. In some cases, amnesia is
considered a normal part of the recovery
processes following head trauma.
 Dissociative amnesia
• Dissociative amnesia is a type of dissociative
disorder, a condition which affects the
consciousness, awareness, and perception of a
person. In some instances, this can be limited
to a specific area, but in more severe cases, a
person may forget almost all their identity or
take an entirely new identity.

• The onset of dissociative amnesia is usually

sudden and may last for minutes, hours, or
days, with rarer cases lasting for months of
years. People usually develop this type of
amnesia after experiencing a very stressful or
traumatic experience as a way to cope with the
situation.

• Although the ability to remember usually

returns, the memory of the shocking event
which caused the amnesia may never come
back completely.
• Fixative amnesia-loss of capacity to memorise
new or certain [Link] events are
kept in memory
• Amnestic disorientation-one of the main
components of Korsakoffs psychosis as result a
brain trauma,atherosclerotic changes,at
intoxication
• Progressive amnesia-gradually decrasing of
memory.
• Ribo Low:Memory is suffers from lately
acquired to that which was acqured before.
 Qualitive disorders. Paramnesia and
confabulation
• The term paramnesia was introduced by a German psychiatrist, Emil
Kraepelin, in 1886 to denote errors of memory. He distinguished
three main varieties; one he called simple memory deceptions, as
when one remembers as genuine those events imagined or
hallucinated in fantasy or dream. This is not uncommon among
confused and amnesic people and also occurs in paranoid states.
Kraepelin also wrote of associative memory deceptions, as when a
person meeting someone for the first time claims to have seen him on
previous occasions. This has been renamed reduplicative paramnesia
or simply reduplication. Lastly there was identifying paramnesia, in
which a novel situation is experienced as duplicating an earlier
situation in every detail; this is now known as déjà vu or paramnesia
tout court. The term confabulation denotes the production of false
recollections generally.
 Déjà vu

• The déjà vu experience has aroused

considerable interest and is occasionally felt
by most people, especially in youth or when
they are fatigued. It has also found its way
into literature, having been well described by,
among other creative writers, Shelley,
Dickens, Hawthorne, Tolstoy, and Proust. The
curious sense of extreme familiarity may be
limited to a single sensory system, such as the
sense of hearing, but as a rule it is
generalized, affecting all aspects of
experience including the subject’s own
actions. As a rule, it passes off within a few
seconds or minutes, though its repercussions
may persist for some time. For some
epileptics, however, déjà vu may continue for
hours or even days and can provide a fertile
subsoil for delusional elaboration.
 Confabulation
• Spurious memories or fabrications are very common in
psychiatric disorders and may take on an expansive and
grandiose character. They may also embody obvious
elements from fantasy and dream. At a more realistic level,
the production of false memories (confabulation) is best
studied among sufferers of Korsakoff’s syndrome, for whom
consciousness and reasoning remain clear. When asked what
he did on the previous day, such a person may give a detailed
account of a typical day in his life several months or years
earlier. Evidently his retrograde amnesia and his
disorientation in time provide fertile soil for false
reminiscence. When the confabulation embodies dramatic,
fanciful elements, it is the exception rather than the rule.
 Korsakoff Syndrome.
• Korsakoff Syndrome. In 1889, Serghei Korsakoff described a
syndromeof polyneuritis, anterograde amnesia, and confabulations in
subjects withchronic alcohol use. He did not, however, differentiate
between the acute stage of the illness (the acute encephalopathy had
been described 20 yearsearlier by Carl Wernicke) and the chronic
memory impairment. That connection between the acute and the
chronic condition was made at the beginning of the 20th century by
Karl Boenhoffer. Later, in the eighth edition of his classic textbook,
Emil Kraepelin distinguished between alcohol-related Korsakoff
syndrome and Korsakoff syndrome related to other nonalcoholic
processes (e.g., neurosyphilis). The etiological correlation between
Korsakoff syndrome and thiamine deficiency causedby poor nutrition
associated with chronic alcohol use was described in the early 1930s.
• Korsakoff syndrome, also called Korsakoff • Wernicke encephalopathy
dementia, Korsakoff psychosis, or amnesic- (WE)
confabulatory syndrome, is a life-altering,
permanent neuropsychiatric condition
characterized by anterograde and retrograde
amnesia as well as frontal lobe dysfunction
and affective disturbance.3 Korsakoff
syndrome can follow an acute episode of WE,
and may appear as an agitated delirium or
delirium tremens. Korsakoff syndrome may
affect up to 85% of patients who have
suffered WE, and can result in persistent
impairments ranging from mild memory
deficit to stupor and coma.4,5 Confabulation
and apathy are the classically reported
sequelae of WE or Korsakoff syndrome. At
least 60% of patients who survive WE also
have residual physical impairments such as
nystagmus and ataxia.