• Psychological amnesia

psychological amnesia is a type of dissociative disorder. This usually refers to anterograde or retrograde amnesia caused by psychological trauma or stress without the presence of any physical cause.

Examples of dissociative conditions that can present with amnesia include:

• Dissociative fugue.
• Dissociative identity disorder.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Acute stress disorder.

Contributing traumatic causes or triggers can include:

• Experiencing violent crime or a terrorist attack.
• Being sexually, physically, or emotionally abused.
• Experiencing trauma while serving in the military.
• Surviving a natural disaster.

Any intolerable life situation that causes severe psychological stress and internal conflict can lead to some degree of amnesia. Psychological stressors are more likely to disrupt personal, historical memories rather than interfere with forming new memories.

The following are common symptoms of different types of amnesia:

• Impaired ability to learn new information (anterograde amnesia).
• Impaired ability to remember past events and previously familiar information (retrograde amnesia).
• Experiencing false memories, which are either completely invented memories or real memories misplaced in time — a phenomenon as confabulation.
• Impaired short-term memory.
• Partial or total loss of all memory.
• Confusion.

A doctor will need to rule out other possible types of memory loss, including those caused by dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, or a brain tumor.

Take a detailed medical history, which may be difficult if the person does not remember. Family members or caregivers may need to be present.

Blood tests may reveal the presence of any infection or nutritional deficiencies.

Some doctors think that amnesia resolves without treatment, but it’s wrong, said Dr Qaisar Ahmed MD, DHMS. If an underlying physical or mental disorder is present, treatment for that condition is also necessary.

Psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may help some people with amnesia. Hypnosis can be an effective way of recalling forgotten memories. Working on retrieving memories and managing psychological issues that may have contributed to amnesia are important aspects of any amnesia treatment.

Meditation and related mindfulness activities may help a person relax the mind, which may help retrieve forgotten memories.

Family support is also crucial. Showing the person photographs of past events, exposing them to familiar smells, and playing familiar music may help.

There are currently no allopathic drugs available for restoring memory lost due to amnesia. However, there are treatments for the underlying causes.

For example, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS) can involve memory loss due to a thiamin (vitamin B1) deficiency, so targeted nutrition that supports any nutritional deficits can help. Whole grain cereals, legumes (beans and lentils), nuts, lean pork, and yeast are rich sources of thiamin. Those with WKS also need to stop drinking alcohol.

Patients with amnesia due to head trauma may need surgery to remove blood buildup in the brain. Patients with encephalitis may need anti-inflammatory medications.

Homeopathic treatment for amnesia

Homeopathy has many best and proven medicines for amnesia; here are explained few of them:

Anacardium Orientale

Neurasthenics patients: who have nervous dyspepsia, relieved by food; impaired memory, depression, and irritability; diminution of senses (smell, sight, hearing). Fears. Amnesia. Weakening of all senses, sight, hearing, etc. Aversion to work; lacks self-confidence; irresistible desire to swear and curse. Sensation of a plug-in various parts-eyes, rectum, bladder, etc. also, of a band. Empty feeling in stomach; eating temporarily relieves all discomfort. Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia. Delirium. Intermittency of symptoms.

Fixed ideas. Hallucinations: thinks he is possessed of two persons or wills. Anxiety when walking, as if pursued. Profound melancholy and hypochondriasis, with tendency to use violent language. Brain-fag. Impaired memory. Absent mindedness. Very easily offended. Malicious; seems bent on wickedness. Lack of confidence in himself or others. Suspicious. Clairaudient hears voices far away or of the dead. Senile dementia. Absence of all moral restraint. Vertigo. Pressing pain, as from a plug; worse after mental exertion-in forehead; occiput, temples, vertex; better during a meal. Itching and little boils on scalp.

Rhododendron

Dread of a storm; particularly afraid of thunder. Forgetful. Amnesia. Dementia. Delirium; staggers; falls asleep on his knees. Frightful visions. Sambre, morose humor. Excessive indifference. Sudden loss of ideas. Leaves out whole words when writing. While talking forgets what he is talking about. Reeling sensation in head; brain feels as if surrounded with a fog.

Helleborus Niger

Melancholy taciturnity. Excessive, and almost mortal anguish. Homesickness. Hypochondriacal humor. Taedium vitae; envious seeing others happy. Dementia. Delirium. Suicidal. Indolence. Sobbing lamentation. Obstinate silence. Irritable – feel better from consolation. Suspicious. Dullness of the internal senses. Stupidity and want of reflection, with (thoughtless) fixedness of look on one single point, much moaning, and inability to think. Amnesia, weakness of the memory. The mind seems to lose command over the body; the muscles refuse their office as soon as the attention is diverted (if the will is not strongly fixed upon their action; if he talks, he lets fall what he holds in his hand). Giddiness on stooping. Stupefying headache. Face pale – dropsical swelling of the face and body.

Absinthian

Forgets what has recently happened. Insane; idiotic; brutal. Idiotic manner doesn’t care whether she dies or not. Wants nothing to do with anybody. Delirium. Dementia. Frightful visions and terrifying hallucinations. Stupor alternating with dangerous violence. Amnesia. Insensible with the convulsions. Vertigo – when he/she rises up; tendency to fall backward. Confusion in head. Headache. Wants to lie with the head low. Congestion of the brain and spinal cord.

Causticum

Does not want to go to bed alone. Least thing makes cry. Sad, hopeless. Intensely sympathetic. Ailments from long-lasting grief, sudden emotions. Amnesia. Dementia. Thinking of complaints, aggravates, especially hemorrhoids. Delirium. Sensation of empty space between forehead and brain. Pain in right frontal eminence.

Hyoscymaus Niger

Disturbed nervous system. It is as if some diabolical force took possession of the brain and prevented its functions. Amnesia. Mania of a quarrelsome and obscene character. Inclined to be unseemly and immodest in acts, gestures and expressions. Very talkative, and persists in stripping herself, or uncovering genitals. Is jealous, afraid of being poisoned, etc. Its symptoms also point to weakness and nervous agitation – Alzheimer’s disease. Tremulous weakness and twitching of tendons. Subsultus tendendum. Muscular twitching, spasmodic affections, generally with delirium. Non-inflammatory cerebral activity. Toxic gastritis. Very suspicious. Obscene, lascivious mania uncovers body; jealous, foolish. Great hilarity; inclined to laugh at everything. Delirium, with attempt to run away. Dementia. Low, muttering speech; constant carphologia, deep stupor.

Head feels light and confused. Vertigo as if intoxicated. Brain feels loose, fluctuating. Inflammation of brain, with unconsciousness; head is shaken to and fro. Alzheimer’s disease.

Conium Maculatum

Stabbing pains. Weak spells; faintness; sudden loss of strength while walking. Amnesia. Paroxysms of hysteria and hypochondriasis from abstinence from sexual intercourse. Photophobia; ptosis. When turning in bed (vertigo) moving the head ever so little; turning head sideways. In the dark, from letting the affected limb hang down; from moving; when walking; by stooping. Aversion to open air. Desire for warmth. Apoplexy with paralysis (in old people). Falling off of the hair.

Alumina

Low spirited; fears loss of reason. Confused as to personal identity. Hasty, hurried. Time passes slowly. Variable mood. Better as day advances. Suicidal tendency when seeing knife or blood. Alzheimer’s disease. Amnesia. Dementia. Stitching burning pain in head, with vertigo relieved by food. Pressure in forehead. Inability to walk closed eyes. Throbbing headache, with constipation. Vertigo, with nausea; better after breakfast. Falling out of hair; scalp itches and is numb.

Rauwolfia Serpentina

Melancholia include are Abasement, Abaser, Abjection, Abjectness, Bleakness, Bummer, Cheerlessness, Delirium, Dejection, Desolation, Desperation, Dementia, Despondency, Disconsolation, Discouragement, Dispiritedness, Distress, Dole, Dolor, Dreariness, Dullness, Dumps, Ennui, Gloom, Gloominess, Hopelessness, Lowness, Melancholy, Misery, Mortification, Qualm, Sadness, Sorrow, Trouble, Unhappiness, Vapors, Woefulness, Worry, Downheartedness, Dolefulness, Blue Funk, Blahs, Heaviness Of Heart and Lugubriosity. Paranoia, Paranoia. Alzheimer’s disease.

Vicum Album

Incoherent talk and spectral illusions; inclined to be violent. Insensibility. Stupor, succeeded by almost entire insensibility, lying motionless, with eyes closed, as if in a sound sleep, but easily roused by a loud noise, and then would answer any question, but when he/she relapsed into his/her former condition there was a slight disposition to stertorous breathing. Amnesia. Dementia. Feels as if going to do something dreadful while the trembling is on. Delirium. Keeps waking in night thinking the most horrible things imaginable. If awake seemed to be dreaming, if asleep she was dreaming. Felt in bad temper. Great depression.

Giddiness. Intense throbbing headache. Sharp pain in head and face. Numb feeling in head. Tightening sensation of the brain once or twice. Sharp shooting in occipital bone.

Lac Caninum

Amnesia. Very forgetful; in writing, makes mistakes. Despondent; thinks her disease incurable. Attacks of rage. Visions of snakes. Dementia. Thinks himself of little consequence. Alzheimer’s disease. Sensation of walking or floating in the air. Pain first one side, then the other. Blurred vision, nausea and vomiting at height of attack of headache. Delirium. Occipital pain, with shooting extending to forehead. Sensation as if brain were alternately contracted and relaxed. Noises in ears. Reverberation of voice.

Mancinella

Silent mood, sadness. Wandering thoughts. Sudden vanishing of thought. Amnesia. Bashful. Dementia. Fear of becoming insane. Delirium. Vertigo: head feels lights, empty. Scalp itches. Hair falls out after acute sickness. Fear: of getting crazy; of evil spirits. Alzheimer’s disease. Averse to work and answering questions. Sadness. Anxiety; before menses. Homesick. Bashful and taciturn; timid look.

Datura Metel

Soporose condition, and later delirium and spasms. The soporose state may be absent. Delirium. Patient usually manifests excessive timidity. Picks at real or imaginary objects. Amnesia. Extreme dilatation of pupils. Flickering before eyes with photophobia. Pulse and temperature undergo extremes of exaltation and depression. Alzheimer’s disease. Convulsions. Delirium. Epilepsy. Eye affections. Mania. Timidity. Dementia.

Aethusa Cynapium

Restless, anxious, crying. Hallucination – sees rats, cats, dogs, etc. Unconscious, delirious. Amnesia. Inability to think, to fix the attention. Brain-fag. Idiocy may alternate with furor and irritability. Head feels bound up, or in a vise. Occipital pain extending down spine; better lying down and by pressure. Head symptoms relieved by expelling flatus and by stool. Hair feels pulled. Vertigo with drowsiness, with palpitation; head hot after vertigo ceases.

Argentum Nitricum

Thinks his understanding will and must fail. Fearful and nervous; impulse to jump out of window. Faintish and tremulous. Melancholic; apprehensive of serious disease. Time passes slowly. Memory weak. Amnesia. Errors of perception. Impulsive; wants to do things in a hurry. Peculiar mental impulses. Fears and anxieties and hidden irrational motives for actions. Headache with coldness and trembling. Emotional disturbances cause appearance of hemi-cranial attacks. Sense of expansion. Brain-fag, with general debility and trembling. Delirium.

Arsenicum Album

Great anguish and restlessness. Changes place continually. Fears, of death, of being left alone. Great fear, with cold sweat. Thinks it useless to take medicine. Suicidal. Hallucinations of smell and sight. Despair drives him from place to place. Miserly, malicious, selfish, lacks courage. General sensibility increased. Sensitive to disorder and confusion.

Amnesia. Periodical burning pains, with restlessness; with cold skin. Hemicrania, with icy feeling of scalp and great weakness. Sensitive head in open air. Delirium tremens; cursing and raving; vicious. Head is in constant motion.

Ignatia Amara

Hyperesthesia of all senses. Tendency to clonic spasms. Mentally, the emotional element is uppermost, and co-ordination of function. It is one of the chief remedies for hysteria. Dementia. Nervous temperament-women of sensitive, easily excited nature, dark, mild disposition, quick to perceive, rapid in execution. Rapid change of mental and physical condition, opposite to each other. Alzheimer’s disease. Delirium. Alert, nervous, apprehensive, rigid, trembling patients who suffer acutely in mind or body, at the same time. Effects of grief and worry. Amnesia.

Changeable mood; introspective; silently brooding. Melancholic, sad, tearful. Not communicative. Sighing and sobbing. Aftershocks, grief, disappointment. Head feels hollow, heavy; worse, stooping. Congestive headaches following anger or grief; worse, smoking or smelling tobacco, inclines head forward.

Coca

Melancholy. Hypochondriasis. Mental depression with drowsiness. Bashfulness. Prefers solitude and darkness. Amnesia. Alzheimer’s disease. Muddled feeling in brain. Loss of energy. Dementia. Great mental excitement. Delirium. Vertigo and fainting. Tension over forehead. Headache just over eyebrows. Shocks in head; dull, full feeling in occiput with vertigo, the only possible position is on the face.

Kali Phosphoricum

One of the greatest nerve medicines. Prostration. Weak and tired. Marked disturbance of the sympathetic nervous system. Amnesia. Anxiety, nervous dread, lethargy. Indisposition to meet people. Extreme lassitude and depression. Very nervous, starts easily, irritable. Brain-fag; hysteria; night terrors. Somnambulance. Loss of memory. Slightest labor seems a heavy task. Great despondency about business. Shyness; disinclined to converse.

Occipital headache; better, after rising. Vertigo, from lying on standing up, from sitting, and when looking upward. Cerebral anemia. Headache of students, and those worn out by fatigue. Headaches are relieved by gentle motion. Headache, with weary, empty, gone feeling at stomach.

Aurum Metallicum

Feeling of self-condemnation and utter worthlessness. Profound despondency, with increased blood pressure, with thorough disgust of life, and thoughts of suicide. Talks of committing suicide. Great fear of death. Peevish and vehement at least contradiction. Anthropophobia. Mental derangements. Amnesia. Constant rapid questioning without waiting for reply. Cannot do things fast enough. Over sensitiveness; to noise, excitement, confusion.

Head: Violent pain in head; worse at night, outward pressure. Roaring in head. Vertigo. Tearing through brain to forehead. Pain in bones extending to face. Congestion to head.

Nux Moschata

Changeable; laughing and crying. Confused, impaired memory. Bewildered sense, as in a dream. Thinks she has two heads. Amnesia. Vertigo when walking in open air; aches from eating a little too much. Feeling of expansion, with sleepiness. Pulsating in head. Cracking sensation in head. Sensitive to slightest touch in a draught of air. Bursting headache; better hard pressure.

Plumbum Metallicum

Mental depression. Fear of being assassinated. Quiet melancholy. Slow perception; loss of memory; amnesic aphasia, amnesia. Hallucinations and delusions. Intellectual apathy. Memory impaired. Paretic dementia. Delirium alternating with colic. Pain as if a ball rose from throat to brain. Tinnitus.

Baryta Carb

Loss of memory, mental weakness. Amnesia. Irresolute. Lost confidence in himself. Senile dementia. Confusion. Bashful. Aversion to strangers. Childish; grief over trifles. Vertigo; stitches, when standing in the sun, extending through head. Brain feels as if loose. Hair falls out. Confusion. Wens.

Lac Caninum

Amnesia, very forgetful; in writing, makes mistakes. Despondent; thinks her disease incurable. Attacks of rage. Visions of snakes. Thinks himself of little consequence. Sensation of walking or floating in the air. Pain first one side, then the other. Blurred vision, nausea and vomiting at height of attack of headache. Occipital pain, with shooting extending to forehead. Sensation as if brain were alternately contracted and relaxed. Noises in ears. Reverberation of voice.

Cannabis Indica

Excessive loquacity; exuberance of spirits. Time seems too long; seconds seem ages; a few rods an immense distance. Constantly theorizing. Anxious depression; constant fear of becoming insane. Mania must constantly move. Amnesia, very forgetful; cannot finish sentence. Is lost in delicious thought. Uncontrollable laughter. Delirium tremens. Clairvoyance. Emotional excitement; rapid change of mood. Cannot realize her identity, chronic vertigo as of floating off.

Feels as if top of head were opening and shutting and as if calvarium were being lifted. Shocks through brain. Uremic headache. Throbbing and weight at occiput. Headache with flatulence. Involuntary shaking of head. Migraine attack preceded by unusual excitement with loquacity.

Medorrhinum

Weak memory. Amnesia. Loses the thread of conversation. Cannot speak without weeping. Time passes too slowly. Is in a great hurry. Hopeless of recovery. Difficult concentration. Fears going insane. Sensibility exalted. Nervous, restless. Fear in the dark and of some one behind her. Melancholy, with suicidal thoughts.

Burning pain in brain, in occiput. Head heavy and drawn backward. Headache from jarring of cars, exhaustion, or hard work.

Kali Phosphoricum

Kali Phos is considered the top natural medicine in Homeopathy to treat weak memory because of mental exertion. Amnesia. Anxiety, nervous dread, lethargy. Indisposition to meet people. Extreme lassitude and depression. Very nervous, starts easily, irritable. Brain-fag; hysteria; night terrors. Somnambulance. Loss of memory. Slightest labor seems a heavy task. Great despondency about business. Shyness; disinclined to converse.

Cicuta Virosa

Delirium, with singing, dancing and funny gestures. Everything appears strange and terrible. Amnesia. Confounds present with the past; feels like a child. Stupid feeling. Melancholy, with indifference. Mistrustful. Epilepsy; moaning and whining. Vivid dreams.  Cerebro-spinal meningitis. Cervical muscles contracted. Vertigo, with gastralgia, and muscular spasms. Sudden, violent shocks through head. Stares persistently at objects. Convulsions from concussion of brain.

Lycopodium Clavatum

Melancholy; afraid to be alone. Little things annoy, extremely sensitive. Averse to undertaking new things. Head strong and haughty when sick. Loss of self-confidence. Hurried when eating. Constant fear of breaking down under stress. Apprehensive. Amnesia. Weak memory confused thoughts: spells or writes wrong words and syllables. Failing brainpower. Cannot bear to see anything new. Cannot read what he writes. Sadness in morning on awaking.

Zincum Metallicum

Weak memory, amnesia. Very sensitive to noise. Averse to work, to talk. Child repeats everything said to it. Fears arrest on account of a supposed crime. Melancholia. Lethargic, stupid. Paresis. Brain-fag.

Phosphorus

Great lowness of spirits. Easily vexed. Fearfulness, as if something were creeping out of every corner. Clairvoyant state. Great tendency to start. Over-sensitive to external impressions. Loss of memory. Amnesia. Brain-fag. Paralysis of the insane. Ecstasy. Dread of death when alone. Brain feels tired. Insanity, with an exaggerated idea of one’s own importance. Excitable, produces heat all over. Restless, fidgety. Hypo-sensitive, indifferent.

Arnica Montana

Fears touch, or the approach of anyone. Amnesia; when spoken to answers correctly, but relapses. Indifference: inability to perform continuous active work; morose, delirious. Nervous; cannot bear pain; whole body oversensitive. Says there is nothing the matter with him. Wants to be let alone. Agoraphobia (fear of space). After mental strain or shock.

Natrum Sulph

Lively music saddens. Melancholy, with periodical attacks of mania. Suicidal tendency; must exercise restraint. Inability to think. Dislikes to speak, or to be spoken to. Amnesia.