Amnesia is a condition which can define by the loss of memory which can last for two hours or sometimes two months or more. This loss of memory can be due to some disturbing, appalling, psychological experience or brain injury or emotional chain of events. There are different reasons and causes of amnesia such as organic or functional. Organic amnesia is caused due to damage to your brain by external factors which can be due to physical reasons like trauma or disease. Functional amnesia is due to psychological factors.

There are different types of Amnesia

Anterograde amnesia - In this kind of amnesia the patient loses all its senses and is far away from remembering the current events after the trauma or disease affected the patient.

Emotional/hysterical amnesia - This can be said as the temporary condition which wont be lasting for a long time and is basically caused by psychological trauma.

Lacunar amnesia - This state of amnesia creates a blockage in your mind for a specific event.

Korsakoff syndrome - This is caused due to the constant intake of alcohol and can also be said as the state of alcoholism.

Posthypnotic amnesia - This kind of amnesia is due to the prolonged hypnotic state which keeps your mind unfit to remember the events which happened during hypnosis as well as information have been part of your long-term memory.

Retrograde amnesia It is a sequence of loss events which took place before the onset of trauma or disease causing amnesia.

Transient global amnesia - This kind of amnesia occurs to people who are middle-aged or elderly and it is short term memory loss lasting for few minutes.

Causes of Amnesia

There are many reasons which can be the cause of amnesia and these are some of them

* Head injury
* Severe illness
* High fever
* Seizures
* Emotional shock or hysteria
* Alcohol-related brain damage
* Drugs
* Stroke
* Alzheimer's disease
* Brain surgery

The common factor in all the above causes is that it has affected the brain in some or the other manner. As there is damage to the brain cells and deterioration of cells causes the loss of memory. Brain injury can happen due to some berserk car accident or due to some fall or a blow on your head. Alzheimer sufferers are the worst hit with memory loss as it is the first thing which the disease hits upon. Firstly they would loose memory on the current events and later in the advanced stages of Alzheimer the long term memory is affected.

Amnesia can be prevented when all kind of brain damages are avoided and prevented. This would mean all the common sense precautions should be taken which would lead to damage to your brain such as wearing helmet, using seat belt as well as avoiding the use of alcohol and drugs. A healthy and fit body will have less of damages due to strokes or seizures which occur due to the blockages in your heart. This happens due to improper diet and your body being treated as a junkyard of junk food.

Treatment of amnesia depends upon the cause of amnesia and on that basis diagnosis is done. If it is a brain injury due to some physical causes like accident or fall then it has to be treated immediately by the doctor. Emotional trauma can be cured or helped through psychotherapy. Hypnosis has played an active role in getting peoples memory back. Medicines have been an important factor in helping people out.