Amnesia

[Date of Submission]

Abstract

The following paper discusses about a commonly rising mental problem, known as Amnesia. Amnesia is when a due to the effect on a particular critical region of brain, the patient starts to loose his/her memory. Furthermore, it also discusses about the cure of this problem, as well as discussing as to what are the causes of amnesia as of which it most commonly takes place. Moreover, the paper has also discussed about the case of HM, which is a famous case and is known under the heading of Karsakoff's syndrome.

Introduction

Amnesia is the term used for referring to the loss of memory as of the damage sustained by the two critical areas of the brain, which include diencephalic lesions and the medial temporal lobe. This destruction of the crucial parts of the brain affects one's memory and speech ability badly, the loss of temporary memory is evident if these parts are damaged by any means, and not only this but the person's affected on these particular areas is also expected to lose his/her speech ability and might not even be able to correspond to the situation appropriately (Julia, pp. 1-5; Hall, pp. 1-2; Wingfield & Cronin-Golomb, pp. 1-4).

People who suffer from Amnesia as a primary symptom of their mental disease remain lucid and are able to handle themselves quite well. Some of the patients of Amnesia even know that they are suffering from the disease of memory loss and thus are able to handle with it more appropriately. These kinds of people that are suffering from Amnesia and are also aware of the fact have been a lot of help for researchers, in determining that how the overall process of the memory retention actually works (Julia, pp. 1-5; Hall, pp. 1-2).

Causes of Amnesia

There are several reasons how these critical brain areas can be damaged, and the damage of these critical brain areas result in the Amnesia. The root causes for the damage of these critical areas of the brain may include infection, disease, reduced blood circulation to the critical areas of the brain which can also be termed as vascular insufficiency & excessive use of drugs or alcohol. Furthermore, the infections that affect the tissues of the brain, like herpes and encephalitis are also the causes of amnesia.

An important cause of amnesia is of the accidents that happen which cause some most critical areas of the brain to get damaged, which in turn result in the loss of temporary memory and also the loss of the ability to store information for a longer period of time. The effect of some critical areas which result in a person's transformation into an amnesia patient include the bilateral damage done to the brain's limbic system, which is responsible for the memory storage, recall and the processing (Wingfield & Cronin-Golomb, pp. 1-4).

An important state of patients suffering from amnesia is of Karsakoff's syndrome which is caused by chronic alcoholism. The details about the causes and symptoms related to a famous case related to the ...