Memory is one of the most important functions in human life. Memory is the ability to store and reproduce at the right time memories or abstract information. Memory plays a crucial role in learning and work skills, and in childhood is involved in the formation of personality.

Memory impairment is a pathological condition that can be a symptom of many diseases. As a result, the patient has a violation of the perception of reality, expressed to one degree or another.

This symptom can be either constant and persist for a long period of time (or even throughout life), or episodic. Every fourth person encountered the last option - to varying degrees and at different periods of life.

Main reasons

The reasons can be very diverse. The most common, according to statistical studies, is asthenic syndrome. This is the name of the complex of symptoms: psycho-emotional stress, emotional lability, increased anxiety, signs of depression. The second most common reason is the consequences of any diseases.

But there are a number of other factors that can lead to memory impairment:

• Other asthenic conditions: stressful situations, overwork.
• Excessive alcohol consumption. Leads to somatic disorders, structural changes in the brain.
• Diseases associated with pathologies of blood circulation in the brain.
• Head injury.
• Tumors localized in the brain tissues.
• Psychiatric pathologies.
• Congenital disorders of the intellect - both genetic and associated with birth trauma.
• Metabolic disease.
• Chronic intoxication (for example, salts of heavy metals)

Accordingly, the treatment in each case is specific, and a thorough diagnosis is required, since there are many reasons.

Signs of the development of memory impairment

They can appear overnight, or they can develop almost imperceptibly. How the disease progresses is important for diagnosis.

By number, the following symptoms are distinguished:

• Amnesia. This is the name of the complete forgetting of the events of any time period. The same term is used to refer to the complete loss of memories.
• Hypermnesia. This is the reverse process - patients note a phenomenal increase in memory, they remember all the little things, they can reproduce a large amount of information.
• Hypomnesia. This is a partial loss of memories or a partial decrease in memory.

There are symptoms associated with damage to various components of memory:

• Inability to remember events occurring at the present time.
• Difficulties with reproducing events from the past, difficulties with reproducing previously remembered information.

Interestingly, in case of memory disorders, some specific objects of memories are often deleted:

• Memory of traumatic events, negative situations and events.
• Removing events that compromise a person.

Forgetting can also be observed, not associated with specific objects, but at the same time fragmentary. In this case, random sections of memories fall out of memory, and it is not possible to find any system.

As for the qualitative violation of memories, the symptoms may be as follows:

• Replacing one's own memories with someone else's or one's own, but from a different period of time.
• Replacing one's own memories with fictional ones that never existed in reality and are objectively impossible.
• Replacing one's own memories with situations and facts gleaned from the media, heard somewhere - that is, real, but not belonging to specific people or the patient.

Another unusual violation is associated with the perception of real time as something that happened in the past. Since it is extremely important to figure out exactly what disorders a patient has, he has to work with a psychiatrist for a long time even in the absence of a mental illness - this is necessary for an objective recognition of symptoms and a correct diagnosis.

Memory impairment in children

In children, the diagnosis is even more difficult. This is due to the fact that memory impairments can manifest themselves due to congenital diseases or can be acquired already during life. In children, there are two main forms of memory loss - this is hypomnesia (problems with remembering and subsequent reproduction of information) and amnesia (complete loss of any memory area). In addition to diseases of the sphere of intelligence, mental illness, poisoning, as well as coma can lead to memory impairment in children.

Most often, children are diagnosed with memory impairment against the background of asthenia or an unfavorable psychological climate. Signs of pathology in this case are the lack of perseverance, problems with fixing attention, changes in behavior.

As a rule, children with memory impairments do not cope well with the school curriculum. They often have difficult social adaptation.

Memory problems in childhood can be associated with visual impairment - after all, a person receives most of the information through vision, and visual perception is very developed precisely in childhood. In this case, the child has the following symptoms: a decrease in memory, a low speed of memorization, rapid forgetting. This is due to the fact that the images received in a non-visual way are practically not colored emotionally. Therefore, such a child will show lower results compared to a sighted child. Adaptation consists in focusing on the development of the verbal-logical component, increasing the amount of short-term memory, and developing motor skills.

Memory impairment in old age

Many older people have some degree of memory impairment. First of all, this should be associated with age-related changes in the circulatory system and brain function. It also affects the slowdown in metabolism, which affects the nervous tissue.

An important cause of disorders is Alzheimer's disease, which manifests itself and actively progresses in adulthood and old age.

According to statistics, at least half (and according to some studies up to 75%) of older people themselves note some forgetfulness or other memory impairment. Short-term memory suffers first. This leads to a whole range of unpleasant psychological symptoms, which, unfortunately, are observed in many older people. Among these manifestations: increased anxiety, depression.

Normally, memory function decreases gradually, so even in old age it does not interfere with daily activities and does not reduce the quality of life. Recent studies show the relationship between a healthy lifestyle in youth, intellectual work (or other mental activity) and condition in old age.

If pathology is noted, then memory loss can occur faster. In the absence of a correct diagnosis and adequate treatment, the risk of developing dementia is high. This condition is characterized by the loss of everyday skills due to the loss of the ability to memorize.

Our doctors

Diagnostics

Diagnosis begins with a careful history taking - this is due to the fact that the patient himself or his relatives can provide the most important information about his condition. First of all, the doctor determines which component of memory suffers the most, and then outlines a plan for further examination.

Many specialized tests have been developed and are being used to differentiate various disorders.

The most commonly used tests are:

• Repeating words immediately after they have been heard allows you to evaluate the work of short-term memory. It is clear that a healthy person will be able to repeat all the words.
• Repetition of ten words. The essence of the test is that the doctor voices ten unrelated words. The patient repeats them. Then this cycle is repeated with the same words 5 times. Healthy people name at least 4 words for the first time, and at the last repetition they can voice everything.
• Pictogram method. The patient is told a few words (usually about 10) and then given time to draw a supporting drawing on paper. From the drawing, the patient names the words, and then he is asked to look at the paper and name them after an hour. The norm is the memorization of at least 90% of the words.
• A simple but effective method is to retell a simple plot text in a few sentences. The test has variations - the text is read by the doctor or the patient himself (thus testing visual and auditory memory).

Equally important are instrumental studies that allow assessing the functional state of the brain and the state of the circulatory system. Electroencephalography, resonance imaging and computed tomography are actively used.

If there are suggestions that memory impairment appeared due to a somatic disease, then diagnostic methods are used to identify the main diagnosis, and the state of memory is monitored during recovery.

Treatment

Treatment tactics are 100% dependent on the cause. Adequate therapy is selected individually, taking into account the course of the disease and the patient's condition. Some diseases require lifelong correction.

It is important to seek medical help in time. Many diseases associated with the weakening of memory (however, like others) are better treated in the early stages of development.

As a rule, treatment is aimed at eliminating the immediate cause of the disease, and at eliminating the symptoms - to improve the patient's quality of life.

You can undergo a full-fledged diagnosis using the most modern methods and get an effective treatment regimen at the CELT multifunctional clinic. Advanced technologies and qualified doctors will help restore lost memory.

Memory disorders - reduction or loss of the ability to remember, store, recognize and reproduce information. With various diseases, individual components of memory, such as memorization, retention, reproduction, may suffer.

The most common disorders are hypomnesia, amnesia and paramnesia. The first is a decrease, the second is memory loss, the third is memory errors. In addition, there is hypermnesia - an increased ability to remember.

Hypomnesia- weakening of memory. It can be congenital, and in some cases accompanies various anomalies of mental development. It occurs in asthenic conditions arising from overwork, as a result of serious illnesses. With recovery, memory is restored. In old age, with severe cerebral atherosclerosis and dystrophic disorders in the brain parenchyma, the memorization and preservation of current material deteriorates sharply. On the contrary, the events of the distant past are preserved in memory.

Amnesia- lack of memory. Loss of memory of events occurring at any time intervals is observed in senile psychoses, severe brain injuries, carbon monoxide poisoning, etc.

Distinguish:

• retrograde amnesia- when memory is lost for events preceding illness, injury, etc.;
• anterograde - when what happened after the disease is forgotten.

One of the founders of Russian psychiatry S.S. Korsakov described a syndrome that occurs with chronic alcoholism and was named Korsakov's psychosis in his honor. The symptom complex described by him, which occurs in other diseases, is called Korsakov's syndrome.

Korsakov's syndrome. With this memory impairment, the memorization of current events worsens. The patient does not remember who talked to him today, whether his relatives visited him, what he ate at breakfast, does not know the names of medical workers who constantly serve him. Patients do not remember the events of the recent past, they inaccurately reproduce the events that happened to them many years ago.

Reproduction disorders include paramnesia - confabulations and pseudo-reminiscences.

Confabulation. Filling in memory gaps with events and facts that did not take place in reality, and this happens in addition to the desire of patients to deceive, mislead. This type of memory pathology can be observed in patients with alcoholism with the development of Korsakov's psychosis, as well as in patients with senile psychosis, with damage to the frontal lobes of the brain.

Pseudo-reminiscences- distorted memories. They differ from confabulation in greater stability, and as about the present, patients talk about events that were, perhaps, in the distant past, perhaps they saw them in a dream or they never happened in the life of patients. These painful disorders are often observed in patients with senile psychoses.

Hypermnesia- strengthening memory. As a rule, it is innate in nature and consists in particular of remembering information in a larger volume than normal and for a longer period. In addition, it can be observed in patients in a state of manic excitement in manic-depressive psychosis and manic state in schizophrenia.

Patients with various types of memory disorders need a sparing attitude towards them. This is especially true for patients with amnesia, since a sharp decrease in memory makes them completely helpless. Understanding their condition, they are afraid of the ridicule and reproaches of others and react extremely painfully to them. In case of wrong actions of patients, medical workers should not be irritated, but if possible, they should be corrected, encouraged and reassured. You should never dissuade a patient with confabulations and pseudo-reminiscences that his statements are devoid of reality. This will only irritate the patient, and the contact of the medical worker with him will be broken.

Memory is an important function of our central nervous system to perceive the received information and store it in some invisible “cells” of the brain in reserve in order to retrieve and use it in the future. Memory is one of the most important abilities of a person’s mental activity, therefore the slightest violation of memory burdens him, he gets out of the usual rhythm of life, suffering himself and annoying those around him.

Memory impairment is most often perceived as one of the many clinical manifestations of some kind of neuropsychic or neurological pathology, although in other cases forgetfulness, absent-mindedness and poor memory are the only signs of a disease that no one pays attention to, believing that a person is such by nature .

The big mystery is human memory

Memory is a complex process that takes place in the central nervous system and involves the perception, accumulation, retention and reproduction of information received at different periods of time. Most of all, we think about the properties of our memory when we need to learn something new. The result of all the efforts made in the learning process depends on how someone manages to hook, hold, perceive what they see, hear or read, which is important when choosing a profession. From the point of view of biology, memory is short-term and long-term.

Information received in a glimpse or, as they say, “it flew in one ear, flew out of the other” is a short-term memory in which what is seen and heard is postponed for several minutes, but, as a rule, without meaning and content. So, the episode flashed by and disappeared. Short-term memory does not promise anything in advance, which is probably good, because otherwise a person would have to store all the information that he does not need at all.

However, with certain efforts of a person, information that has fallen into the zone of short-term memory, if you keep your eyes on it or listen and delve into it, will be transferred to long-term storage. This happens even beyond the will of a person, if some episodes are often repeated, have a special emotional significance, or occupy a separate place among other phenomena for various reasons.

Assessing their memory, some people claim that they have a short-term memory, because everything is remembered, assimilated, retold in a couple of days, and then just as quickly forgotten. This often happens when preparing for exams, when information is put aside only for the purpose of reproducing it to decorate a grade book. It should be noted that in such cases, turning again to this topic, when it becomes interesting, a person can easily restore seemingly lost knowledge. It is one thing to know and forget, and another to not receive information. And here everything is simple - the acquired knowledge without much human effort was transformed into departments of long-term memory.

Long-term memory analyzes, structures, creates volume and purposefully postpones everything for future use indefinitely. Everything is kept in long-term memory. Memorization mechanisms are very complex, but we are so used to them that we perceive them as natural and simple things. However, we note that for the successful implementation of the learning process, in addition to memory, it is important to have attention, that is, to be able to concentrate on the right subjects.

It is common for a person to forget past events after a while, if they do not periodically extract their knowledge in order to use them, therefore, the inability to remember something is not always to be attributed to memory impairment. Each of us has experienced the feeling when "it is spinning in the head, but does not come to mind", but this does not mean that serious disorders have occurred in the memory.

Why do memory lapses happen?

The causes of impaired memory and attention in adults and children may be different. If a child with congenital mental retardation immediately has learning problems, then he will already come to adulthood with these disorders. Children and adults can react differently to the environment: the child's psyche is more tender, so it takes stress harder. In addition, adults have long studied what the child is still trying to master.

Sadly, the trend towards the use of alcoholic beverages and drugs by adolescents, and even by young children left unattended by their parents, has become frightening: cases of poisoning are not so rarely recorded in the reports of law enforcement agencies and medical institutions. But for the child's brain, alcohol is the strongest poison that has an extremely negative effect on memory.

True, some pathological conditions that often cause absent-mindedness and poor memory in adults are usually excluded in children (Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis, osteochondrosis).

Causes of memory impairment in children

Thus, the causes of impaired memory and attention in children can be considered:

• Lack of vitamins,;
• Asthenia;
• Frequent viral infections;
• Traumatic brain injury;
• Stressful situations (dysfunctional family, despotism of parents, problems in the team that the child attends);
• Poor eyesight;
• Mental disorder;
• Poisoning, alcohol and drug use;
• Congenital pathology, in which mental retardation is programmed (Down syndrome, etc.) or other (whatever) conditions (lack of vitamins or trace elements, the use of certain drugs, changes in metabolic processes that are not for the better) that contribute to the formation of attention deficit disorder, which, As you know, memory does not improve.

Causes of problems in adults

In adults, the reason that has become a bad memory, absent-mindedness and inability to concentrate for a long time, are various diseases acquired in the process of life:

1. Stress, psycho-emotional stress, chronic fatigue of both soul and body;
2. Acute and chronic;
3. Discirculatory;
4. cervical spine;
5. Traumatic brain injury;
6. Metabolic disorders;
7. Hormonal imbalance;
8. GM tumors;
9. Mental disorders (depression, schizophrenia and many others).

Of course, anemia of various origins, lack of trace elements, diabetes mellitus and other numerous somatic pathologies lead to impaired memory and attention, contribute to the appearance of forgetfulness and absent-mindedness.

What are the types of memory disorders? Among them are dysmnesia(hypermnesia, hypomnesia, amnesia) - changes in memory itself, and paramnesia- distortion of memories, to which the patient's personal fantasies are added. By the way, some of them, on the contrary, are considered by others to be rather a phenomenal memory than its violation. True, experts may have a slightly different opinion on this matter.

Dysmnesia

Phenomenal memory or mental disorder?

Hypermnesia- with such a violation, people remember and perceive quickly, information set aside many years ago for no reason pops up in memory, “rolls”, returns to the past, which does not always cause positive emotions. A person himself does not know why he needs to keep everything in his head, however, he can reproduce some long-past events to the smallest detail. For example, an elderly person can easily describe in detail (up to the teacher's clothes) individual lessons at school, retell the lithmontage of a pioneer gathering, it is not difficult for him to remember other details related to studying at the institute, professional activities or family events.

Hypermnesia, present in a healthy person in the absence of other clinical manifestations, is not considered a disease, rather, on the contrary, this is exactly the case when they talk about phenomenal memory, although from the point of view of psychology, phenomenal memory is a slightly different phenomenon. People with this phenomenon are able to memorize and reproduce huge amounts of information that is not connected with any special meaning. These can be large numbers, sets of individual words, lists of objects, notes. Such a memory is often possessed by great writers, musicians, mathematicians and people of other professions that require genius abilities. Meanwhile, hypermnesia in a healthy person who does not belong to the cohort of geniuses, but has a high intelligence quotient (IQ), is not such a rare occurrence.

As one of the symptoms of pathological conditions, memory impairment in the form of hypermnesia occurs:

• With paroxysmal mental disorders (epilepsy);
• With intoxication with psychoactive substances (psychotropic drugs, narcotic drugs);
• In the case of hypomania - a condition similar to mania, but not up to it in terms of the severity of the course. Patients may experience a surge of energy, increased vitality, and ability to work. With hypomania, a violation of memory and attention is often combined (disinhibition, instability, inability to concentrate).

It is obvious that only a specialist can understand such subtleties, distinguish between the norm and pathology. Most of us are average representatives of the human population, to whom "nothing human is alien", but at the same time they do not turn the world upside down. From time to time (not every year and not in every locality) geniuses appear, they are not always immediately noticeable, because often such individuals are considered simply eccentrics. And, finally, (perhaps not often?) among the various pathological conditions there are mental illnesses that require correction and complex treatment.

bad memory

Hypomnesia- this type is usually expressed in two words: "bad memory."

Forgetfulness, absent-mindedness and poor memory are observed with asthenic syndrome, which, in addition to memory problems, is also characterized by other symptoms:

1. Increased fatigue.
2. Nervousness, irritability with or without it, bad mood.
3. Meteorological dependence.
4. during the day and insomnia at night.
5. BP drops, .
6. Tides and others.
7. , weakness.

Asthenic syndrome, as a rule, forms another pathology, for example:

• Arterial hypertension.
• Postponed traumatic brain injury (TBI).
• atherosclerotic process.
• The initial stage of schizophrenia.

The cause of impaired memory and attention according to the type of hypomnesia can be various depressive conditions (you can’t count everyone), menopausal syndrome that occurs with an adaptation disorder, organic brain damage (severe TBI, epilepsy, tumors). In such situations, as a rule, in addition to hypomnesia, the symptoms listed above are also present.

"I remember here - I don't remember here"

At amnesia not the whole memory falls out, but its individual fragments. As an example of this type of amnesia, one would like to recall the film by Alexander Gray "Gentlemen of Fortune" - "I remember here - I don't remember here."

However, not all amnesias look like in the famous motion picture, there are more serious cases when memory is lost significantly and for a long time or forever, therefore, several types of such memory impairments (amnesia) are distinguished:

A special type of memory loss that cannot be managed is progressive amnesia, representing a sequential loss of memory from the present to the past. The reason for the destruction of memory in such cases is organic atrophy of the brain, which occurs during Alzheimer's disease And . Such patients do not reproduce memory traces well (speech disorders), for example, they forget the names of household items that they use daily (plate, chair, clock), but at the same time they know what they are intended for (amnestic aphasia). In other cases, the patient simply does not recognize the thing (sensory aphasia) or does not know what it is for (semantic aphasia). However, one should not confuse the habits of “radical” owners to find a use for everything that is in the house, even if it is intended for completely different purposes (you can make a beautiful dish or stand out of a used kitchen clock in the form of a plate).

This is what you need to figure out!

Paramnesia (distortion of memories) also referred to as memory disorders, and among them are the following types:

• Confabulation, in which fragments of one’s own memory disappear, and their place is taken by stories invented by the patient and presented to them “in all seriousness”, since he himself believes in what he is talking about. Patients talk about their exploits, unprecedented achievements in life and work, and even sometimes about crimes.
• pseudo-reminiscence- the replacement of one memory with another event that actually took place in the patient's life, only at a completely different time and under different circumstances (Korsakov's syndrome).
• Cryptomnesia when patients, having received information from various sources (books, movies, stories of other people), pass it off as events they experienced. In a word, patients, due to pathological changes, go to involuntary plagiarism, which is characteristic of delusional ideas found in organic disorders.
• Echomnesia- a person feels (quite sincerely) that this event has already happened to him (or did he see it in a dream?). Of course, such thoughts sometimes visit a healthy person, but the difference is that patients attach special significance to such phenomena (“go in cycles”), while healthy people simply quickly forget about it.
• Polympsest- this symptom exists in two versions: short-term memory lapses associated with pathological alcohol intoxication (episodes of the past day are confused with long-past events), and the combination of two different events of the same period of time, in the end, the patient himself does not know what happened In fact.

As a rule, these symptoms in pathological conditions are accompanied by other clinical manifestations, therefore, having noticed signs of “déjà vu” in oneself, there is no need to rush to make a diagnosis - this also happens in healthy people.

Decreased concentration affects memory

To violations of memory and attention, the loss of the ability to focus on specific objects include the following pathological conditions:

1. Attention instability- a person is constantly distracted, jumping from one subject to another (disinhibition syndrome in children, hypomania, hebephrenia - a mental disorder that develops as a form of schizophrenia in adolescence);
2. Rigidity (slow switching) from one topic to another - this symptom is very typical for epilepsy (those who communicated with such people know that the patient is constantly “stuck”, which makes it difficult to conduct a dialogue);
3. Lack of concentration- they say about such people: “That’s what a distracted one from Basseinaya Street!”, That is, absent-mindedness and poor memory in such cases are often perceived as features of temperament and behavior, which, in principle, often corresponds to reality.

Undoubtedly a decrease in concentration of attention, in particular, will adversely affect the entire process of memorizing and storing information, that is, on the state of memory as a whole.

Children forget faster

As for children, all these gross, permanent memory impairments, characteristic of adults and, especially, the elderly, are very rarely noted in childhood. Memory problems that arise due to congenital features require correction and, with a skillful approach (as far as possible), may recede a little. There are many cases when the efforts of parents and teachers literally worked wonders for Down syndrome and other types of congenital mental retardation, but here the approach is individual and dependent on different circumstances.

Another thing is if the baby was born healthy, and the problems appeared as a result of the troubles suffered. So here a child can expect a slightly different reaction to different situations:

• Amnesia in children in most cases, it manifests itself as memory lapses in relation to individual memories of episodes that occurred during the period of clouding of consciousness associated with unpleasant events (poisoning, coma, trauma) - it is not in vain that they say that children quickly forget;
• Alcoholization of adolescence also proceeds differently than in adults - the absence of memories ( polympsests) on events occurring during intoxication, appears already in the first stages of drunkenness, without waiting for a diagnosis (alcoholism);
• retrograde amnesia in children, as a rule, it affects a short period of time before an injury or illness, and its severity is not as clear as in adults, that is, memory loss in a child can not always be noticed.

Most often in children and adolescents there is a memory impairment of the type of dysmnesia, which is manifested by a weakening of the ability to remember, store (retention) and reproduce (reproduction) the information received. Disorders of this type are more noticeable in school-age children, as they affect school performance, adaptation in a team, and behavior in everyday life.

In children attending preschool institutions, symptoms of dysmnesia are problems with memorizing rhymes, songs, children cannot participate in children's matinees and holidays. Despite the fact that the kid visits kindergarten all the time, every time he comes there, he cannot find his own locker to change clothes, among other items (toys, clothes, towels) it is difficult for him to find his own. Dysmnestic disorders are also noticeable at home: the child cannot tell what happened in the garden, forgets the names of other children, each time he reads fairy tales he perceives as if he hears them for the first time, he does not remember the names of the main characters.

Transient disturbances of memory and attention, along with fatigue, drowsiness and all sorts of autonomic disorders, are often observed in schoolchildren with various etiologies.

Before treatment

Before treating the symptoms of memory impairment, it is necessary to make a correct diagnosis and find out what causes the patient's problems. To do this, you need to get as much information about his health:

1. What diseases does he suffer from? Perhaps it will be possible to trace the connection between the existing pathology (or transferred in the past) with the deterioration of intellectual abilities;
2. Does he have a pathology that directly leads to memory impairment: dementia, cerebrovascular insufficiency, TBI (history), chronic alcoholism, drug disorders?
3. What medications does the patient take and is memory impairment related to the use of medications? Some groups of pharmaceuticals, for example, benzodiazepines, among the side effects, have such disorders, which, however, are reversible.

In addition, in the process of diagnostic search, it can be very useful to identify metabolic disorders, hormonal imbalance, deficiency of trace elements and vitamins.

In most cases, when looking for the causes of memory impairment, they resort to methods neuroimaging(CT, MRI, EEG, PET, etc.), which help to detect a brain tumor or hydrocephalus and, at the same time, to differentiate a vascular brain lesion from a degenerative one.

The need for neuroimaging methods also arises because memory impairment at first may be the only symptom of a serious pathology. Unfortunately, the greatest difficulties in diagnosis are depressive states, forcing in other cases to prescribe a trial antidepressant treatment (to find out if there is depression or not).

Treatment and correction

The normal aging process itself involves some decline in intellectual abilities: forgetfulness appears, memorization is not so easy, concentration of attention drops, especially if the neck is “squeezed” or pressure rises, however, such symptoms do not significantly affect the quality of life and behavior in everyday life. Older people who adequately assess their age learn to remind themselves (and quickly remember) about current affairs.

In addition, many do not neglect pharmaceutical treatment to improve memory.

Now there are a number of drugs that can improve brain function and even help with tasks that require significant intellectual effort. First of all, these are (piracetam, phezam, vinpocetine, cerebrolysin, cinnarizine, etc.).

Nootropics are indicated for elderly people who have certain age-related problems that are not yet noticeable to others. The drugs of this group are suitable for improving memory in violation of cerebral circulation caused by other pathological conditions of the brain and vascular system. By the way, many of these drugs are successfully used in pediatric practice.

However, nootropics are a symptomatic treatment, and in order to obtain the proper effect, one must strive for an etiotropic one.

As for Alzheimer's disease, tumors, mental disorders, here the approach to treatment should be very specific - depending on the pathological changes and the reasons that led to them. There is no single prescription for all cases, so there is nothing to advise patients. You just need to contact a doctor, who, perhaps, before prescribing drugs to improve memory, will send for an additional examination.

Difficult in adults and the correction of disorders of mental activity. Patients with poor memory, under the supervision of an instructor, memorize verses, solve crossword puzzles, practice solving logical problems, however, training, bringing some success (the severity of mnestic disorders seems to have decreased), still do not give particularly significant results.

Correction of memory and attention in children, in addition to treatment with the help of various groups of pharmaceuticals, provides for classes with a psychologist, exercises for the development of memory (poems, drawings, tasks). Of course, the children's psyche is more mobile and better amenable to correction, unlike the adult psyche. Children have the prospect of progressive development, while in older people only the opposite effect progresses.

Video: bad memory - expert opinion

Memory disorders are one of the complex neuropsychiatric disorders that complicate life. Memory lapses in older people are a natural process of aging. Some disorders are correctable, others are a symptom of a more severe comorbidity.

Memory impairment in psychology

Mental memory disorders are a group of qualitative and quantitative disorders in which a person either stops memorizing, recognizing and reproducing information, or there is a noticeable decrease in these functions. In order to understand how certain disorders affect a person's memorization of information, it is important to understand what memory is. So, memory is the highest mental function that includes a complex of cognitive abilities: memorization, storage, reproduction.

The most common memory disorders are:

• hypomnesia– decrease or weakening;
• paramnesia– errors in memory;
• – event dropout (before or after).

Causes of memory disorder

Why are memory disorders observed? There are many reasons for this, both psychological and pathological, a traumatic effect on a person. Memory impairment - psychological causes:

• psycho-emotional overstrain;
• overwork due to mental or hard physical work;
• a psychotrauma that once occurred that caused a defensive reaction - displacement;

Disorders of memory functions - causes of an organic nature:

• prolonged toxic effects on the brain of alcohol, drugs;
• unfavorable ecology;
• various circulatory disorders (stroke, atherosclerosis, hypertension);
• brain oncology;
• viral infections;
• Alzheimer's disease;
• congenital mental illnesses and genetic mutations.

External influences:

• traumatic brain injury;
• difficult childbirth with the imposition of forceps on the baby's head.

Types of memory impairment

Many people are familiar with the concept of amnesia, because the word itself very often appears in various films or TV shows, where one of the characters loses his memory or pretends not to remember anything, but meanwhile, amnesia is just one type of memory impairment. All types of memory disorders are usually divided into two large groups:

1. quantitative hypermnesia, amnesia, hypomnesia.
2. quality– confabulation, contamination, cryptomnesia, pseudo-reminiscence.

Cognitive memory disorder

Memory refers to the cognitive functions of the human brain. Any violations of memory disorders will be cognitive and leave an imprint on all human thought processes. Cognitive memory disorders are usually divided into 3 types:

• lungs- amenable to medical correction;
• medium- occur earlier than in old age, but are not critical, often associated with other diseases;
• heavy- these disorders occur with general brain damage, for example, as a result of progressive dementia.

Quantitative memory disorders

Memory impairment - dysmnesias (quantitative disorders) are divided into several types by psychiatrists. The largest group is made up of various kinds of amnesia, in which memory loss occurs for a certain period of time. Types of amnesia:

• retrograde- occurs on the events preceding the traumatic, painful situation (for example, the period before the onset of an epileptic seizure);
• anterograde(temporal) - there is a fallout of events after a traumatic situation has occurred, the patient does not remember the period when he got to the hospital;
• fixative- memory impairment, in which current impressions are not remembered, a person at this moment can be completely disoriented in space and after a few seconds all actions in the current moment are forgotten by the patient forever;
• congrade - loss of state memory during delirium, oneiroid, amnesia in this case can be total or fragmentary;
• episodic - it also happens in healthy people when tired, for example, in drivers who are on the road for a long time, when they remember, they can vividly remember the beginning and end of the path, forgetting what happened in between;
• children's- the inability to remember events that occur before the age of 3 - 4 years (normal);
• intoxication- with alcohol and drug intoxication;
• hysterical(catatim) - exclusion from the memory of traumatic events;
• affective- loss of events occurring during the affect.

Quantitative memory disorders include the following disorders:

• hypomnesia("Hidden memory") - the patient remembers only important events, in healthy people this can be expressed in weakness of memory for dates, names, terms;
• hypermnesia- an increased ability to remember past events that are irrelevant at the moment.

Short-term memory impairment

Psychiatry associates short-term memory disorders with many factors and causes, more often with concomitant diseases and stress factors. Short-term or primary, active memory is an important component of memory in general, its volume is 7 ± 2 units, and the retention of incoming information is 20 seconds, if there is no repetition, the trace of information after 30 seconds becomes very fragile. Short-term memory is very vulnerable, and in amnesia there is a loss of memory of events that happened from 15 seconds to 15 minutes ago.

Memory and speech impairment

Hearing-speech memory is based on the images captured by the auditory analyzer and the memorization of various sounds: music, noise, speech of another person, pronounced memory and speech disorders are characteristic of mentally retarded children and due to damage to the left temporal lobe of the brain during trauma or stroke, which leads to acoustic syndrome. - mnestic aphasia. Oral speech is poorly perceived by patients and out of 4 words spoken aloud reproduces only the first and last (edge ​​effect).

Thinking and memory disorders

All cognitive functions of the brain are interconnected, and if one function is disturbed, over time, others begin to suffer along the chain. Memory and intelligence disorders are observed in Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia. If we consider how a violation occurs, it can be cited as an example that a person performs many operations in his mind, which are stored in the form of experience with the help of short-term and long-term memory. With memory impairments, this experience synthesized by memory and thinking is lost.

Memory and attention disorder

All disorders of attention and memory have a negative impact on the memorization of events, situations and information. Types of impaired memory and attention:

• functional- occur when it is impossible to focus on a certain action, which is manifested by a deterioration in memorization, which is typical for ADHD in children, stress;
• organic- with oligophrenia, Down's syndrome, the development of dementia in the elderly.

Memory disorders in brain lesions

With the defeat of different parts of the brain, memory disorders have different clinical manifestations:

• defeat of the hippocampus and the "Peypets circle" - there is a gross amnesia for current everyday events, disorientation in space and time, patients complain that everything falls out of memory, and they are forced to write everything down in order to remember;
• damage to the medial and basal parts of the frontal lobes - characterized by confabulations and memory errors, patients are uncritical of their amnesia;
• local lesions of the convexital departments - a violation of the mnestic function in any particular area;
• memory impairment after a stroke can be verbal (the patient cannot remember the names of objects, names of loved ones), visual - there is no memory for faces and shapes.

Memory impairment in a child

Basically, memory development disorders in children are associated with asthenic syndrome, which together represents high psycho-emotional stress, anxiety and depression. An unfavorable psychological climate, early deprivation, hypovitaminosis are also provoking amnesia in children. Often, children manifest hypomnesia, expressed in poor assimilation of educational material or other information, while along with memory impairment, all cognitive functions suffer.

Memory impairment in the elderly

Senile dementia or senile memory disorder, popularly referred to as senile insanity, is one of the most common memory disorders in the elderly. Dementia is also associated with diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Pick's. In addition to amnesia, the extinction of all thought processes is observed, dementia sets in with the degradation of the personality. Adverse factors in the development of dementia are cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis.

Symptoms of memory impairment

The symptoms of disorders are varied and depend on the forms in which memory disorders are manifested, in general, the symptoms can be as follows:

• loss of information, skills, both ordinary (brushing teeth) and related to the profession;
• disorientation in time and space;
• stable gaps for the events “before” and “after”;
• palimpsest - loss of individual events when intoxicated;
• confabulation - the replacement of memory gaps with information of a fantastic nature, in which the patient believes.

Diagnosis of memory disorders

The main memory disorders should be diagnosed by a doctor in order not to miss a serious concomitant disease (tumors, dementia, diabetes). Standard diagnostics includes a comprehensive examination:

• blood tests (general, biochemistry, hormones);
• magnetic resonance imaging (MRI);
• computed tomography (CT);
• positron emission tomography (PET).

Psychodiagnostics of memory disorders is based on the methods of A.R. Luria:

1. Learning 10 words. Diagnosis of mechanical memory. The psychologist or psychiatrist slowly calls out 10 words in order and asks the patient to repeat in any order. The procedure is repeated 5 times, and when repeated, the doctor notes how many of the 10 words were correctly named. Normally, after the 3rd repetition, all words are remembered. An hour later, the patient is asked to repeat 10 words (normally 8-10 words should be reproduced).
2. Associative series "words + pictures". Violations of logical memory. The therapist names the words and asks the patient to pick up a picture for each word, for example: a cow - milk, a tree - a forest. An hour later, the patient is presented with pictures with a request to name the words corresponding to the image. The number of words and the complexity-primitiveness in the compilation of the associative series are estimated.

(questions: 12)

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Symptoms of the disease - memory impairment

Violations and their causes by category:

Violations and their causes in alphabetical order:

memory impairment -

Memory is a mental function that provides fixation (reception, impregnation), preservation (retention) and reproduction (reproduction) of various impressions, makes it possible to accumulate information and use previous experience.
The phenomena of memory can equally relate to the emotional sphere and the sphere of perceptions, the consolidation of motor processes and intellectual experience. Accordingly, there are several types of memory.

Figurative memory - the ability to memorize images of objects: visual (visual or iconic memory), auditory (auditory or ecological memory), taste, etc.
The concept of motor memory defines the ability to memorize the sequence and formulas of movements. Allocate memory for internal states, for example, emotional (emotional memory), visceral sensations (pain, discomfort, etc.).

Specific for a person is symbolic memory, in which memory for words (symbols) and memory for thoughts, ideas (logical memory) are distinguished.

Individual memory differs in volume, speed, accuracy and strength of memorization. The amount of memory is calculated by the amount of information that can be recorded in it.

Memorization (speed, accuracy, recollection) and forgetting largely depend on personal qualities, the specific attitude of a given person to what is to be memorized.

Memorization is related to the attitude to impressions. Spontaneity of thinking is important for remembering - mental stereotypes lead to intellectual blindness.

Distinguish between involuntary and voluntary memory. In the first case, memorization accompanies human activity and is not associated with a special intention to remember anything. Arbitrary memorization is associated with a preliminary setting for memorization. It is the most productive and underlies all learning, but requires compliance with special conditions (comprehension of the memorized material, utmost attention and concentration).

Depending on the organization of memory processes and the duration of information retention, there are direct, short-term, intermediate (buffer) and long-term types of memory. The first three types are sometimes combined into short-term memory. Each of them is implemented on the basis of various mechanisms, has a different capacity, specifics of the recorded data. Short-term memory is also divided into the so-called immediate imprint, an intermediate form of short-term memory (or consolidation stage) and working memory.

Information is transferred from immediate memory to short-term memory. This is a modal-non-specific type of memory (with one storage of information). The information is represented by an abstract serial code. The volume of short-term memory is equal to 7±2 structural units or blocks, each of which can be designated by one word or a short phrase. Short-term memory processes can be controlled arbitrarily. The storage time of information in memory is up to 20 seconds - a period sufficient for identification, selection and encoding of signals. The work of short-term memory is illustrated by the phenomena of eidetism. This form of memory is characterized by increased sensitivity to various external influences (intoxication, hypoxia, trauma, affects). Working memory, as a kind of short-term memory, serves to retain information in the course of its extraction from long-term memory in the process of carrying out certain types of activity and is extremely important in the implementation of almost all mental processes.

Intermediate (buffer) memory has the only storage of information in which it is retained for up to three days.

Long-term memory provides storage of impressions almost throughout life. Long-term memory has motor, figurative and verbal structures. In each of them there are two blocks of information. In the first, the latter is stored in an organized form and is actively used. This is approximately 10% of all long-term memory reserves (on average). In the other block, the information is unorganized and arbitrary reproduction is not available for most people.

What diseases cause memory impairment:

There are two main types of memory impairment, as well as a special type of impairment, which can be designated as a violation of mnestic activity (or pseudoamnesia).

Memory disorders are manifested by impaired memorization, storage, forgetting and reproduction of various information and personal experience. There are quantitative disorders, expressed as a weakening, loss or strengthening of traces of memory, and qualitative disorders (paramnesia), in which false memories are observed, a mixture of past and present, real and imaginary.

Quantitative memory impairments include amnesia, hypermnesia, and hypomnesia.

Amnesia is a loss of memory for various information, skills, or for a particular period of time.
- With fixative amnesia, there is a loss of the ability to remember and reproduce new information. Memory for current, recent events is sharply weakened or absent, while maintaining it for knowledge acquired in the past. Orientation in the environment, time, surrounding persons, in the situation is disturbed - amnestic disorientation.
- Retrograde amnesia - loss of memory for events that preceded the state of altered consciousness, grossly organic brain damage, hypoxia (for example, self-hanging), the development of an acute psychotic syndrome. Amnesia can spread over periods of time of varying duration - from a few minutes, hours, days to a number of months and even years. A gap in memory can be persistent, stationary, but in many cases memories partially or completely return later. In the latter version, we are obviously talking about violations of the reproductive function of memory. Restoration of memory, if it occurs, usually begins with the appearance of memories of more distant events and proceeds towards ever more recent ones. Less commonly, the sequence of recovery of traces of memory may be different. We observed only one case when the memories returned in reverse order - from recent towards more and more distant.
- Anterograde amnesia - loss of memories of events immediately following the end of an unconscious state or other overt mental disorder. Amnesia can spread over significant periods of time, reaching several days, months, possibly years. Identification of anterograde amnesia sometimes encounters great difficulties, often it is mixed with fixation and congrade amnesia. The development of anterograde amnesia is based on the blocking of mechanisms that ensure the transfer of information from the "short" and intermediate forms of memory to long-term memory. Anterograde amnesia can be combined with retrograde, as can be seen in the mentioned observation - anteroretrograde amnesia.
- Congrade amnesia is characterized by a loss of memory about events in the environment and about one's own well-being for a period of disturbed consciousness. Amnesia can be complete or total, which is typical for twilight clouding of consciousness, amentia, severe stupor.

Hypomnesia, or weakening of memory, most often manifests itself in the form of dysmnesia - uneven damage to various memory functions, primarily retention and reproduction. One of the early signs of dysmnesia is a violation of selective reproduction in the form of the inability to remember any fact that is necessary at the moment, although later this fact pops up in memory by itself. A sign of a relatively mild weakening of memory is also forgetting that the patient has already reported about any fact to this person before.
The coming weakening of memory is more noticeable in relation to mechanical memory than verbal-logical. First of all, the memorization and reproduction of reference material is disturbed - dates, names, numbers, titles, terms, faces, etc. Fresh and less fixed impressions are also forgotten faster. Orientation in time worsens, chronological memory suffers, the sense of time is disturbed.

Hypermnesia - a pathological aggravation of memory - is manifested by an excessive abundance of memories that are vivid sensual-figurative in nature, emerge with extraordinary ease and cover both the event as a whole and its smallest details. Reproduction of the logical sequence of facts is disturbed, mainly the mechanical and figurative types of memory are intensified. Events are grouped into rows reflecting their connection by contiguity, similarity and contrast. Hypermnesia is heterogeneous, a number of its variants can be distinguished depending on the clinical context in which it is observed (affective pathology, hallucinatory-delusional states, states of confused consciousness).

Hypermnesia occurs in hypomanic and manic states, in the initial stages of intoxication (alcohol, hashish, etc.), in the prodrome of the expansive form of progressive paralysis, in schizophrenia, in a state of hypnotic sleep. Hypermnesia can be with depression - the most insignificant episodes of the past are clearly remembered, consonant with low self-esteem and ideas of self-blame. Hypermnesia is partial, selective.

Paramnesias (distortions, deceptions), or qualitative memory impairments, occur both independently and in combination with quantitative impairments. The complexity of the symptoms of paramnesia makes it difficult to distinguish and classify them.

Memory disorders also include the phenomena of previously seen, heard, experienced, experienced, told (deja vu, deja entendu, deja vecu, deja eprouve, deja raconte) - for the first time seen, heard, read or experienced is perceived as familiar, met earlier and currently recurring; and, conversely, the phenomena of the never seen, heard, experienced, etc. (jamais vu, jamais vecu, jamais entendu, etc.). Familiar, known, habitual is perceived as new, not previously encountered. The past life is remembered without feeling personally experienced.

Illusions of recognition are distinguished among memory impairments. With such deviations in the functioning of memory, unfamiliar faces, objects, conditions are taken for others that really exist and are known to the patient. Most often occur in relation to people. Illusions of recognition usually concern one or a limited circle of persons or objects, less often they are multiple - they are unstable and immediately forgotten. Occur against the background of disorientation in place, time and environment with clouding of consciousness, amnestic syndrome (intoxication), vascular, senile psychoses). Illusory false recognitions with a feeling of distant similarity without complete identification of objects can occur in asthenic conditions. In psychological terms, the appearance of recognition illusions is probably associated with a violation of the mechanisms of apperception - the comparison of current impressions with past experience, which forms the basis of object recognition.

Syndromes of memory impairment

Korsakov's syndrome
In 1887 S.S. Korsakov first described the memory impairment associated with chronic alcoholism. Severe memory impairment is the main clinical manifestation of Korsakov's syndrome (KS). Memory impairment (amnesia) is an isolated disorder in CS. Other higher brain functions (intellect, praxis, gnosis, speech) remain intact or are only slightly disturbed. As a rule, there are no pronounced behavioral disorders. This feature serves as the main differential diagnostic difference between CS and other conditions with severe memory impairment (for example, dementia).

In addition to alcoholism, the causes of this syndrome can be thiamine deficiency of another etiology (starvation, malabsorption syndrome, inadequate parenteral nutrition), as well as damage to the structures of the hippocampus as a result of a tumor, trauma, cerebrovascular accident in the basin of the posterior cerebral arteries, acute hypoxic encephalopathy, etc.

Memory impairment in dementia
Memory impairment is a mandatory symptom of dementia. The latter is defined as a diffuse impairment of higher brain functions acquired as a result of an organic brain disease, leading to significant difficulties in everyday life. The prevalence of dementia among the population is very significant, especially in the elderly: from 5 to 10% of people over 65 years of age have dementia.

Senile memory impairment
A slight decrease in memory is not a pathology for the elderly and senile age. Numerous experimental studies show that healthy elderly people learn new information worse and experience certain difficulties in retrieving adequately memorized information from memory compared to younger people. Normal age-related changes in memory occur between the ages of 40 and 65 and do not progress further. They never lead to significant difficulties in daily life, there is no amnesia for current or distant events. Help with memorization in combination with a hint during playback significantly improves the assimilation and reproduction of information. Auditory memory suffers more during normal aging than visual or motor memory.

Age-related changes in memory are probably of a secondary nature and are associated with a weakening of concentration and a decrease in the speed of reaction to external stimuli, which leads to insufficiency in the processes of encoding and decoding information at the stages of memorization and reproduction. This explains the high efficiency of techniques that stimulate the patient's attention during memorization. According to some data, the weakening of memory with age correlates with some decrease in cerebral metabolism and the number of gliocytes.

Pathological dysmnesic syndrome of old age is “benign senile forgetfulness”, or “senile amnestic syndrome”. Crook et al. called a similar symptom complex "age-related memory impairment." This term is also widely used in foreign literature. Under these terms, it is customary to understand pronounced memory impairment in the elderly, going beyond the age norm. Unlike dementia, memory impairment in benign senile forgetfulness is a monosymptom, does not progress and does not lead to severe impairment of social interaction.

Benign senile forgetfulness is probably a heterogeneous condition in etiology. In a number of cases, memory impairments in the elderly are of a functional nature and are associated with emotional-affective and motivational disorders. In other cases, we are talking about an organic brain disease of a vascular or degenerative nature.

Dysmetabolic encephalopathies
In the clinic of somatic diseases, impaired memory and other cognitive functions may be due to dysmetabolic cerebral disorders. Memory loss regularly accompanies hypoxemia in pulmonary insufficiency, advanced stages of hepatic and renal failure, and prolonged hypoglycemia. Well-known mnestic disorders in hypothyroidism, deficiency of vitamin B12 and folic acid, intoxication, including drugs. Among the drugs that can adversely affect cognitive abilities, it is important to note the central anticholinergics. Tricyclic antidepressants and antipsychotics also have an anticholinergic effect. Benzodiazepine drugs impair attention and concentration, and with prolonged use in high doses, they can lead to memory impairment resembling CS. It should be borne in mind that older people are especially sensitive to psychotropic drugs. Narcotic analgesics can also adversely affect attention, memory function, and intelligence. In practice, these drugs are more often used for non-drug purposes. Timely correction of dysmetabolic disorders usually leads to complete or partial regression of mnestic disorders.

Psychogenic memory disorders
Memory loss along with impaired attention and mental performance are characteristic cognitive symptoms of severe depression. In some cases, the severity of cognitive impairment can lead to an erroneous diagnosis of dementia (the so-called pseudodementia). The pathological mechanisms and phenomenology of mnestic disturbances in depression are very similar to subcortical dementia. According to a number of researchers, neurochemical and metabolic changes responsible for memory loss (deficiency of ascending neurotransmitter systems, hypometabolism in the frontal lobes of the brain) are also similar in these conditions. However, unlike subcortical dementia, the mnestic defect in depression is less persistent. In particular, it is reversible with adequate antidepressant therapy. It should also be borne in mind that the motor retardation characteristic of some patients with depression, external indifference to the environment and non-participation in a conversation with a doctor (and in neuropsychological testing) can create an exaggerated impression that the patient has pronounced intellectual and memory disorders.

Transient memory impairment
Often, the memory disorder is temporary (like a “lapse” in memory). The patient is completely amnesic for a certain period of time. At the same time, during the examination and neuropsychological examination, no significant disorders of the mnestic function are detected. Most often, transient memory disorders are observed in alcoholism, being one of the earliest manifestations of this disease. "Memory blackout" ("palimpsest") caused by alcohol consumption does not always correlate with the amount of ethanol. The behavior of the patient during "amnestic episodes" may be quite adequate. Occasionally, "lapses in memory" can occur with the abuse of benzodiazepine tranquilizers and opiates.

Complaints about “memory lapses” are characteristic of epilepsy: patients amnesiaze the seizure and the period of confusion after it. In non-convulsive seizures (eg, complex partial seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy), complaints of short-term periodic amnesia may be the main manifestation of the disease.

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