Memory disorder
Agnosia is typically caused by damage to the brain (most commonly in the occipital or parietal lobes) or from a neurological disorder.
[4] Amnesia is an abnormal mental state in which memory and learning are affected out of all proportion to other cognitive functions in an otherwise alert and responsive patient.
People with anterograde amnesia show difficulty in the learning and retention of information encountered after brain damage.
People with retrograde amnesia generally have memories spared about personal experiences or context independent semantic information.
[8] As noted in the above-mentioned section on traumatic brain injury it can be associated with memory impairment, Alzheimer's disease; however, as far as aging is concerned it poses other threats as well.
[9] When looking at the chart to the right on the page, it states that falls are only 28% of the total causes of TBI, so that would suggest that the elderly make up a good portion of that 28% overall.
As a result, recent controversy has emerged about whether severe head injury and amnesia exclude the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.
In a study carried out by McMillan (1996), patients reported ‘windows' of experience, in which emotional disturbance was sufficient to cause PTSD.
The effects of a CVA in the left and right hemispheres of the brain include short-term memory impairment, and difficulty acquiring and retaining new information.
[11] Dementia refers to a large class of disorders characterized by the progressive deterioration of thinking ability and memory as the brain becomes damaged.
[13] The importance of understanding that the changes most frequently observed and noticed on a daily basis concerning aging loved ones is imperative.
In one study by J. Shagam, it was noted that while Diabetes and Hypertension are not considered part of normal aging, they would be classified under mild cognitive impairment.
It is difficult to accurately diagnose dementia due to the fact that most people are unaware of what to be looking for and also because there is no specific test which can be given as a diagnostic tool.
[14] This form of dementia is not a slow deterioration but rather a sudden and unexpected change due to heart attack or stroke[15] significantly reducing blood to the brain.
[14] Previous research also indicates that with aging and the thinning of the BBB, cognitive changes were also occurring within the section of the brain known as the hippocampus.
[14] Also linked with vascular dementia issues is high cholesterol; furthermore, this risk factor is related to cognitive decline, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease.
[17][18] Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited progressive disorder of the brain that leads to uncontrolled movements, emotional instability, and loss of intellectual faculties.
[20] The first signs of Huntington's Disease are generally subtle; those affected commonly note tics and twitching as well as unexplained fluctuations of mood.
What begins as a slurring and slowing of speech eventually leads to difficulty communicating, reliance on a wheelchair, or confinement to a bed.
[21] The most common symptoms include: tremors, slowness, stiffness, impaired balance, rigidity of the muscles, and fatigue.
[21] According to studies done in London and in Sicily, 1 in 1000 elderly citizens will be diagnosed with Parkinson's,[23] although this can vary regionally and affect a large range of age groups.
Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome (WKS) is a severe neurological disorder caused by thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, and is usually associated with chronic excessive alcohol consumption.
Korsakoff's syndrome is also characterized by profound amnesia, disorientation and frequent confabulation (making up or inventing information to compensate for poor memory).
[28][29] A survey published in 1995 indicated that there was no connection to the national average amount of alcohol ingested by a country in correlation to a range of prevalence within 0 and 2.5%.
[18] Clive Wearing had anterograde amnesia after a rare case of herpes simplex virus I (HSV-I) which targeted and attacked the spinal column and brain.
's medial temporal lobes, particularly to his hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus, and associated diencephalic and basal forebrain structures, is in line with his profound impairment on all explicit tests of new learning and memory.
[9] The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) administered the word learning and recall modules from the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD) to over three thousand participants 60 years and older in 2011–2014.
Some individuals “are unable to acquire or retain new information, making it difficult or impossible to meet social, family and work-related obligations.”[50] Because of this, there is a large responsibility placed on caregivers (usually children)[51] to uphold economic and emotional upkeeps.
In these Asian cultures, mental illness is believed to be the result of an imbalance of hot-cold/wet-dry which interferes with the proper functioning of the nerves, heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, and spleen.
"[53] Characters with memory disorders have helped to move literature and media along by allowing for suspense to be created either through retrograde or traumatic amnesia as seen in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound.
