Not so long ago, the Russian press was talking about another victim of a mysterious illness. The young man woke up on a station bench in an unfamiliar city. He absolutely did not remember how he got there and did not remember anything at all. He turned to the people standing next to him, together they began to look in his pockets for documents, at least something indicating his identity. Not found
Found only some colored pieces of paper. As they explained to the poor fellow who had lost his memory, it was money. He asked: “What is money?” … Neither the police nor the neuropsychiatric clinic could help him, they had to send him to the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry. No injuries or bruises were found in the man. The diagnosis was as follows - total retrograde amnesia of unknown origin, in other words - complete loss of memory for unknown reasons.
According to the deputy director of the scientific center, professor Zurab Kekelidze, in this institution, "lost people" are examined, treated, and they are trying to return their lost past. But this is a long, painstaking work, and it does not always lead to success. By the way, such work is carried out by psychiatrists and psychotherapists only in Russia, although in the rest of the world they also face a similar problem.
The professor told in the “Medical newspaper” about a typical scenario of such clinical cases: “Suddenly a person comes to his senses and begins to understand that he is in an unfamiliar environment, while he has no idea who he is. The only thing when these people look in the mirror, as a rule, recognize themselves, say: "Yes, it's me." Some of them (but far from all!) Are gradually recalling some scraps, pieces from life. Usually they were headed somewhere. One in the morning left the house and went to work. Another went to the dacha, the third went fishing … And from that moment they "disappeared", sank into oblivion. Once in a medical institution, the victims themselves cannot remember anything, but if you question them, push them to remember, some of them discover some of their skills, for example, that they can drive a car, swim. One,When he came to our center and saw a computer, he sat down and automatically began to work, although he had previously claimed that he had never dealt with it. Memory recovery takes place using modern techniques, both medication and psychotherapeutic. Relaxation sessions and special medical procedures help to remember at least something well."
Do intruders “erase” the memory?
There are a variety of rumors among the people about the reasons for the incomprehensible disappearance of people, their return with complete loss of memory. Someone blames the sorcerers who let the damage, someone - aliens. Quite often the townsfolk assume that the special services, and even bandits, “processed” the victims. How did these people actually lose their memory? Or who, and why, needed to deprive them of their memories? Who influenced their psyche? But, according to relatives who found their "losses" through the TV show "Wait for Me", patients with such mysterious amnesia did not turn to psychics, sorcerers, healers who use methods of influencing the subconscious. And also - they did not belong to any sects. This is the opinion expressed by the academician, head of the Institute of Psychoecology Igor Smirnov: “There are many guesses on this score. They often talk about drugs and technologies that make it possible to artificially cut out a part of consciousness. They help not to physically “remove” a witness of an incident, but simply to remove his memories of this incident. Methods that allow you to penetrate the consciousness of any person, “erase” certain information from his brain, even change his personality, do exist. Some of these techniques, created by doctors for the treatment of severe psychosomatic disorders, could be stolen from developers, doctors, and could well fall into the hands of criminal groups. It is possible to erase part of a person's memory using both psychotropic drugs and modern electronic methods of accessing the subconscious.
However, science knows cases when, after experiencing severe stress, a person loses part of his memory himself, without outside influence. This is a protective function of the body: the brain removes from itself extremely painful information that can kill a person. But, as the academician said, memory is lost much more often with head trauma or stroke. As for the restoration of brain functions, it is still possible to return some patients to normal life, but at the beginning of treatment, doctors usually do not give a 100% guarantee. Sometimes the memory returns, but it is difficult to figure out how it happened - the doctors helped or the brain itself gradually returned to normal (med.stars.ru).
What is the diagnosis and treatment
Novosibirsk doctors also meet with cases of total retrograde amnesia. But, unlike their metropolitan colleagues, they look at this problem in a more prosaic way. According to our doctors, the cases they happened to meet had a very realistic explanation. Therefore, they do not believe in aliens and time travel … According to the Deputy Chief Physician of the Novosibirsk Regional Psychoneurological Dispensary Nina Rakitskaya, the occurrence of such pathologies is explained by several reasons. In the first place - intoxication, often alcoholic, even more often - narcotic. Sometimes the culprit is a chemical that patients inhaled or mistakenly drank. There is no unambiguous prediction in these cases, sometimes memory is restored, sometimes it is partially returned or lost - once and for all. It all depends on the degree of brain damage.
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There is a complete loss of memory and with hysterical disorder, as well as transient - hysterical blindness, deafness, paralysis. It is known that an individually intolerable situation, severe stress is quite capable of leading to the fact that a person's legs are taken away, and sometimes memory is "taken away". At the same time, he goes into illness, fencing himself off from the traumatic situation with new experiences (also negative, but different!) As a rule, Nina Yuryevna noted, when the patient's mental state improves, complications, the same violations of motor functions or complete amnesia, disappear.
In the medical practice of Olga Miguskina, head of the neurological department of the Novosibirsk hospital No. 11, people with total retrograde amnesia also met. Among them are young, physically strong men.
Olga Igorevna is convinced that the first thing to do is to thoroughly examine the patient and perform magnetic resonance imaging. And only when it becomes clear what caused such a person's condition, you can start treatment.
Most often, the neurologist believes, craniocerebral trauma and toxic damage to the brain (low-quality alcohol, other harmful substances) lead to complete memory loss. Damage to the parietal, frontal, and temporal regions of the brain is especially dangerous. The first named lobe is responsible for the accumulation of received information and episodic memory (preservation of personal experiences and feelings). The temporal lobe - for the same episodic and semantic memory (knowledge of foreign languages, multiplication tables, etc.). And, of course, severe stress often leads to the loss of memories of the past.
After all, it is known that in emergency situations a person is the most vulnerable. According to scientists (in particular, Hans Markovich from the Cologne Brain Institute), this is due to the fact that during an emergency, the body produces an increased amount of stress hormones, and during prolonged or repeated stress, they block the nerve cells of the brain, do not allow the necessary signals to pass to them. determining their normal work. So in the end, hormones are destructive like poison. The task of doctors is to return peace of mind to a person, so that he looks at the events that hurt him in a different way, more calmly.
Olga Miguskina and her colleagues know from their experience that complete amnesia can be a consequence of stroke, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. And also hysteria caused by adverse events in a person's life. In the latter case, the patient, in order not to suffer, moves away from reality, involuntarily strives to “forget everything”.
To restore the past to the victims, doctors treat them with drugs that improve the nutrition of the brain, stimulating its work. A variety of procedures and psychotherapy are also used. As an experienced neurologist said, with toxic and, even more so, with hysterical amnesia, in some cases, memory recovery is possible. True, not always in full. But with severe head injuries, especially with damage to areas of the brain responsible for memory, recovery is questionable. If it is possible to return memories, it is only partially.
Doctors do not deny that sometimes complete memory loss occurs (including in young people) for no apparent reason. The mechanism of this mysterious pathology is still unknown, and treatment rarely gives a favorable result. But, as doctors advise, relatives of such patients should not despair. Sometimes, as if spontaneously, even the most difficult patients experience "enlightenment", and they remember almost everything! According to the observation of doctors, such a miracle usually happens if the patient returns to his family, where they show sincere love and attention to him. It is rightly said that sometimes a kind word heals …