- What is Amnesia - a short defintion und explanation of
Prof. H.J. Markowitsch
- Forms of Amnesia and Associated Illness
- What can be done against the symptoms of Amnesia?
- Frequently Asked Questions: some interesting questions and answers concerning the topic Amnesia...
II. Forms of Amnesia and Associated Illness:
Several prototypes of amnesia are differentiated; however, often these types
interfere with each other:
- Global Amnesia:
An expression often used in former times, referring to a total loss of memory.
- Partial Amnesia (Lacunary Amnesia):
Memory loss for certain kinds of stored information or
for a ertain time period in life (“epoch“).
- Modality-specific Amnesia:
e.g. visual agnosia, auditory agnosia
- Material-specific Amnesia:
Inability to name objects or items.
- Anterograde Amnesia:
The inability to hold information over a long period
- Retrograde Amnesia:
The inability to retrieve or recall stored information
- Episodic Amnesia:
Amnesia for the events referring to self
- Semantic Amnesia:
Amnesia for facts about the world
- Reduplicative Paramnesia :
Disturbed sense of familiarity; the patient is convinced that a person, a place or
an object exists twice (neurological disease)
- Capgras Syndrom :
Disturbed sense of familiarity; the patient is convinced that a person has a
doppelganger (usually psychiatric illness; illusionary misidentification)
- Topographical Amnesia:
Disturbed memory for places
- Colour Amnesia (Achromatopsia):
Deficit in remembering the names of colours
- Infantile Amnesia:
Inability to recall events from the first years of life (probably because of missing
self-awareness at the time of encoding, insufficient language abilities and
improper neuronal maturation
- Korsakoff’s Syndrome:
Amnesia usually caused by prolonged excessive alcohol consumption
(thiamine deficiency) accompanied by degenerations in the diencephalon.
Primary symptoms are anterograde and retrograde amnesia, disorientation and a
tendency to confabulate. Intelligence and short term memory are preserved as in most
forms of amnesia.
- Mnestic Block Syndrome:
Memory block, caused by psychic symptoms such as stress and traumas
- Pseudodementia :
Illness, appearing as dementia, but usually caused by a depressive condition
- Psychogenic Amnesia:
Memory disturbance limited to autobiographic events
- Psychogenic Fugue; Dissociative Fugue
A form of a psychogenic amnesia, in which patients “escape” from their normal home
or living place, otherwise accompanied by the usual symptoms of a psychogenic
amnesia
- Posthypnotic Amnesia:
Inability to retrieve information which became available in the hypnotic state
- Transient Global Amnesia:
Temporary limited massive memory loss, usually of elderly subjects.
By definition, duration is limited to 24 hours or less. The amnesia is more severe
for the anterograde than for the retrograde memory domain
(Markowitsch 1990)
- Multiple Personality:
Existence of two or more personalities in an individual
- Disorder; Dissociative Identity Disorder:
whereby the personalities are mutually amnesic for each other
- Ganser Syndrome :
Hysterical semi trance condition accompanied by a tendency to respond only
approximately correct; in addition disturbances of consciousness and hallucinations
may occur
- Lying, Simulating, Malingering:
Mimicking memory problems; may be mixed with conditions of (other) functional amnesias
Markowitsch, H.J. (2000) Memory and amnesia. In: M.-M. Mesulam (Ed.), Principles of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, pp. 257-293; Markowitsch, H.J. (2002) Dem Gedächtnis auf der Spur. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag; H. J. Markowitsch/E. Kalbe/J. Kessler/H.-M. von Stockhausen/M. Ghaemi/W.-D. Heiss (1999) Short-term memory deficit after focal parietal damage. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25, 784-796; E. Tulving/H. J. Markowitsch (1998) Episodic and declarative memory: Role of the hippocampus. Hippocampus, 8, 198-204; Markowitsch, H.J. (Ed.) (1990) Transient Global Amnesia and Related Disorders. Toronto: Huber Press.
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