The human memory has unlimited possibilities and no other animal on the earth today possesses so much memory potentialities. It is a very complex mechanism and as such, considerable medical and psychological studies have been done in this area. This has made impossible things possible and the birth of the supercomputer capable of many thousands and billions of calculations was born that greatly resembles the human-memory. It is classified according to the duration, kind, and the recovery of the information. Encoding, Retention, and Recall are the three main stages of the human- memory process. It is short-term as well as long term and it depends largely on the information to be stored in the it.
Some individuals have an awesome power of recovering information while others cannot process information as fast as they can and this can be because of some memory disorders. The loss of memory is called as amnesia in the scientific lingo. The reasons of this disorders could be a fatal accident and the resulting injury to the brain, disease, old age, psychological illnesses, and a variety of other diseases affect the memory in humans.
Disorders that Affect Memory
Stories abound about the loss of memory and some are quite interesting while others are quite serious. Everyone has heard about professors being absent minded and people forgetting their keys in places and the whole lot other such stories. Investigators have found that there are as many as 50 diseases, or medical conditions that can affect memory and result in memory-loss. The most common old age memory-disorder is the Alzheimer's disease, in this disorder there is a progressive deterioration of the brain and this is a very serious condition.
The world today faces a huge increase in the old age population and as such, there is more research in this area of the memory-disorder. There is no cure in sight yet for this disorder and the conditions in this disease are feeling confused, patients cannot remember things that has said moment before, loss of one's identity, meaning of words cannot be remembered, getting lost even while walking, and other such conditions.
Amnesia is another memory-disorder in which the sufferer experiences memory-loss. There is temporary and permanent amnesia, and this memory disorder arises mainly due to illness, fatigue, trauma, and damage to the brain. There are retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Patients cannot recall events when there is a traumatic situation. There is inability in learning new things for the patient with amnesia.
Another memory-disorder is the condition called Aphasia in which the patient cannot articulate their thoughts since there is the loss of memory for coordinating actions that are needed to express oneself through writing and speaking.
Brain tumors are the result of excessive growth of the cells and the particular part of their growth in the brain affects memory-loss. The main tumors that can affect the memory are the gliomas that grow in the glial cells of the brain. This tumor is removed with a surgical intervention. Many other conditions can affect loss but the above are the major conditions of memory-loss. |
