Agnosia

 

The agnosia is due to traumatic injury, infectious, vascular, degenerative, or tumor in brain areas responsible for interpreting and storing the objects. The diagnosis of agnosia is primarily clinical, but neuropsychological tests can confirm it, and its cause specified by imaging tests. There is no specific treatment for agnosia other than treating its cause when possible. Support by physiotherapy and telehealth psychiatry services make it possible to adapt to the patient's environment and teach him to compensate for his deficits.

Definition and Symptoms

What Is Agnosia?

The term "agnosia" refers to an inability to recognize objects despite intact sensory abilities. This disorder is rare in the population. An object is recognized when sensory information concerning it has been interpreted by the brain, which involves relating information already stored for similar objects. In the event of cerebral lesions of the areas concerned by interpretation and memorization functions, these actions become difficult, even impossible: it is agnosia.

Agnosia usually affects only one function, namely hearing, touch, or some other sense. Thus, an object can, for example, be recognized by sight or hearing, but not by touch.

There are, therefore, three main types of agnosia:

·         Auditory agnosia results in an inability to identify noises, sounds or spoken language. And that, with intact hearing abilities. Temporal lesions on the right side may be the cause;

·         Tactile agnosia is the inability to identify objects with the hands;

·         Visual agnosia is manifested by an inability to recognize familiar objects by sight. Occipito-temporal lesions can cause it.

There are two other types of agnosia, less common, affecting other senses such as:

·         The taste, we speak of gustatory agnosia;

·         The smell is olfactory agnosia.

Finally, other agnosia forms, much more complex and very specific in a sense: prosopagnosia, anosognosia, and somatosensory agnosia.

Prosopagnosia results in an inability to identify familiar faces or distinguish objects. The patient fails to identify known faces or even his reflection in a mirror. However, the ability to distinguish different parts of objects and faces remains intact. This form of agnosia is caused by damage to the temporal lobe.

Anosognosia refers to the fact of not being aware of a deficit or not understanding this deficit. This disorder is often linked to damage to the right parietal lobe due to stroke or head trauma. Indeed, patients with multiple impairments may not be aware of one of them but be fully aware of the others. This denial can sometimes go as far as rejection of a paralyzed member's existence, for example.

Somatosensory agnosia results from damage to the parietal lobe as well. Patients with it have difficulty identifying objects placed in their hands that are on the opposite side of their brain injury.

What are The Causes of Agnosia?

Agnosia is a disorder caused by a lesion in the brain, specifically the parietal lobe, temporal or occipital. These different brain areas are used to store memories relating to the use and importance of familiar objects, images, or sounds that they integrate into memory.

Agnosia is a sudden onset; most often, it occurs after a brain injury or a stroke (CVA). However, other causes exist tumors, brain abscesses, and certain degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

What Are The Symptoms?

The symptoms of agnosia differ depending on the part of the brain involved.

When the parietal lobe is injured, usually related to a stroke, patients have difficulty identifying a familiar object (for example, their car keys) placed in the hand on the side of the body opposite the injury. However, as soon as they see the object, they immediately manage to name it.

With an injury to the occipital lobe, patients have difficulty identifying a familiar object, such as a spoon, when they see it. In other agnosia forms, patients fail to recognize faces (prosopagnosia) or familiar places (space agnosia).

Finally, when the temporal lobe is involved, patients cannot recognize sounds. There may be a deficit in the perception of music; we speak of fun.

Treatment and Medications

There is no exact treatment for agnosia. If doctors are capable of identifying the reason, the treatment will be tailored to the exact problem. For example, if an abscess is producing agnosia, your doctor may recommend antibiotics and refer you for an operation to drain the abscess.

If agnosia is well treated, the retrieval should occur within the first three months, although it may take up to a year. The recovery's achievement depends on the kind, size, and location of the injury, the severity of the impairment, the age of the affected person, and the effectiveness of the cure.

Persons with agnosia can benefit from speech and occupational therapy to study how to deal with this impairment in their daily life.

Prevention of Agnosia

As such, there are no preventive procedures for this illness. However, it can be limited to a certain level through early detection of the illness associated with proper medical actions and related therapies. Also, the affected separate can follow the below-mentioned diet stuff to prevent further complications:

More garden-fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, soybean, walnut oil, oily foods, seafood, and sweets.

Limit the consumption of fish and meat.