Multiple Sclerosis memory can be
very unsettling as they become more severe. But how and why
does this happen?
Because
Multiple Sclerosis is known to attack nerves and
especially the spinal cord and the brain, which is composed of 80%
nerve cells,
MS can affect memory in a few different ways.Ms
Brain
MS
attacks the Blood Brain Barrier or the BBB, which surrounds and
protects the brain from heavy metals and other toxins from entering the
brain. MS
degrades the Blood Brain Barrier, which results in there being
holes in the BBB, which allow toxins to enter the brain and cause
confusion
and/or damage to the brain.
Because
Multiple Sclerosis can cause damage to the brain, that can
result in scarring in the brain, depending on where the scarring is
found in
the brain, this can affect many different functions that the brain
performs on
a daily basis.
One
of the ways that Multiple Sclerosis can affect the brain is to
cause ms memory problems.
Multiple
Sclerosis can affect the memory is as follows:
*
Short Term
Memory can be affected – this means that you may not
remember what you did 5 or 10 minutes ago or you can’t remember what
someone
just said to you. Short term memory tends to be more easily affected by
damage
to the brain, although this isn’t always the case.
*
Long Term
Memory – if the scarring in the brain is more severe,
this can even affect how well you remember things from longer ago (like
5 to 20
years before you were diagnosed with MS. Loss
of long term
memory is less often a problem with MS, but this depends on where the
scarring
in your brain is located.
*
Organization
Problems – this can be a result of not remembering
what you are planning on doing the next day or within an hour from
now. Writing
a “To Do” list
may not even help because you may even forget that you wrote yourself a
list to
help remind you of things. This can be un-nerving if you were often
very
organized before MS entered your life.
*
Forgetting
people – this can be a problem if you can’t remember
people that you knew previously.
* Forgetting past events
– this can be a problem, since
your friends can even remind you of shared memories that you have with
them
from the past and you may not even remember the event at all.
* Forgetting the details of past
events – even if you
were good at remembering the details of past events in your life before
MS, the
scarring in your brain may even make it so that you can’t remember
details from
the past events in your life.
What
can help to restore ms memory?
Is
there anything that can help improves ms memory and can
the brain be retrained?
Finding
ways to help to retrain, restore and redevelop new neural
pathways can help to help repair or at least restore the apparent loss
of
memory because of multiple sclerosis.
Sometimes
when our memories are affected because of Multiple Sclerosis,
it is more like our memories were
just temporarily misplaced or confused, like when you forget where you
put your car keys.
But
with the more severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis, there can actually be
damage to the neurons or nerve fibers in scattered or concentrated
locations through out the brain.
When
this happens, it can become a problem recovering these memories, much
like when a back up disk that we use to store our files on is
corrupted, so that the files are not able to be read or recovered.
In
some of the cases of Multiple Sclerosis, the memories do recover to a
large degree, but sometimes certain memories don't seem to be recovered
or returned to us over time.
Although
we sometimes lose some of our past memories because of the lesions or
scarring that Multiple Sclerosis can cause to the brain, our brains
have been found to be able to be exercised, like exercising muscles, to
recover more of the ability of our brains to function better again.
If
we can find ways to do what we can to help to retrain our
brains and help to recover more of our brains to function better again,
this can also help to improve how well our bodies over all can function.
