Memory impairment

Introduction Memory impairment refers to an individual in a state in which information or skills cannot be remembered or recalled, and may be permanent or temporary memory impairments due to pathophysiological or contextual causes. Memory includes memorization, retention, and reproduction, and is closely related to neuropsychological function. According to neurophysiological and biochemical studies, memory is divided into transient memory (in minutes, seconds) short-term memory (days) and long-term memory (months, years). Memory and forgetting are accompanied, and forgetting has time and selectivity. The newly memorable materials are the fastest to forget, and gradually develop into distant things, and things that have caused high attention are hard to forget.

Cause

There are many diseases that cause memory disorders. Various degenerative diseases of the brain (such as Alzheimer's disease), brain trauma and boxer dementia; subcortical arteriosclerotic encephalopathy, lacunar infarction, cerebral infarction and cerebral hemorrhage after cerebrovascular disease; encephalitis; carbon monoxide poisoning and other brains After hypoxia; nutritional deficiency encephalopathy (such as Wernicke encephalopathy); alcoholism and biochemical metabolic disorders can be caused. Memory impairment is a complex pathological process. For any of the above reasons, the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, hippocampus, thalamus, cingulate gyrus, diencephalon and midbrain reticular formation may have memory impairment. People with mental illness also have memory disorders.

an examination

Related inspection

Brain CT examination EEG examination electrocardiogram

Clinically, memory disorders are divided into two categories, namely, anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anything that does not retain newly acquired information is called anterograde amnesia. The patient responds appropriately to a new sensory message, but only when the stimulus occurs, once the stimulus disappears, the patient loses the ability to respond correctly in a matter of seconds. So patients are easy to forget things, and distant memories still exist. This disease is more common in chronic alcoholism. The mechanism of this disease may be due to the fact that information cannot be transferred from the first level of memory to the second level of memory; it is generally believed that this disorder is related to functional damage of the hippocampus. As mentioned earlier, the function of the hippocampus and its loops has been disrupted and recent memory impairments have occurred. The memory that has been lost for a period of time before the normal brain function disorder is called retrograde amnesia; the patient cannot recall the experience of a period of time immediately before the onset of the disease. Some non-specific brain disorders (concussion, electric shock, etc.) and anesthesia can cause this disease. The mechanism of this disease may be that the second level of memory has a disorder, while the third level of memory is not affected. EEG and brain CT are required.

Differential diagnosis

Memory disorders are easily confused with the following diseases:

(1) Affective disorders

1. Mania: The first onset of illness is between 16 and 30 years old. The onset is acute, mainly manifested by high emotions, thinking and emotional excitement. The patient is accelerating because of the high emotions. The concepts are produced one after another, and the following words are written. A lot of poetry creations, rhyming words and adjectives are hand-in-hand, especially the patients who are scornful, on the basis of similar associations and close associations. Remembrance of details of some past life events.

2. Depression: Depression: mainly manifested as depression, slow thinking and psychomotor inhibition. On the background of low mood, it produces self-blame and sinful thoughts. Its sinful thoughts can be traced back to childhood life experiences and its crimes are Some mistakes in childhood life, usually after the illness, can no longer recall these passages.

(B) schizophrenia (schizophrenia) This disease is slow onset, the incidence is mostly in middle age, with ridiculous and bizarre illusion delusion, accompanied by emotional disharmony and speech disorder. Patients who have systematic reverie are obsessed with the illusion and delusion experience, showing a sense of isolation and isolation, special vigilance and attention to the surrounding things, and even the fine details that the normal people can't notice can be recalled without any omission.

(C) neurasthenia (neurastenia) onset between 11 to 40 years old, mainly manifested by headache, sleep disorders, memory disorders, autonomic dysfunction and fatigue and weakness. Memory impairment is mostly memory loss, especially near memory loss, and far memory is normal. This memory loss is often due to the inability to concentrate, not true memory impairment. Chaos, the impression is not deep, can not grasp the center content, see the familiar people for a time difficult to call the name, but once reminded, can still remember, and the nature of memory impairment of brain organic diseases is completely different.

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