Prosopagnosia

There are many disorders that affect us today, some are affected by heart problems, others by joint problems and in some rare cases some are affected by neurological disorders. The benefit is that many of these disorders are treatable, with a little help from professionals the problems and disorders through which we are struggling can be reduced or prevented.

Here at Sani Dental Group, we know the importance of having strong teeth and good health, we know that a good of information can help you prevent many health disorders. So, what are Neurological disorders?

Neurological Disorders

MedlinePlus defines a Neurological Disorders as a problem or damage that occurs either on the brain or spinal cord and/or nerves that make up the nervous system.
When something goes wrong with a part of your nervous system, you can develop problems moving, speaking, swallowing, breathing, or learning. In other cases, you can also have problems with your memory, senses, or mood.

There are more than 600 neurologic diseases. Major types include

• Diseases caused by faulty genes, such as Huntington's disease and muscular dystrophy
• Problems with the way the nervous system develops, such as spina bifida
• Degenerative diseases, where nerve cells are damaged or die, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease
• Diseases of the blood vessels that supply the brain, such as stroke
• Injuries to the spinal cord and brain
• Seizure disorders, such as epilepsy
• Cancer, such as brain tumors
• Infections, such as meningitis

One of these neurological disorders is Prosopagnosia. In a recent study conducted in Germany, the researchers surveyed the face recognition abilities of a large group of students and the test reported a prevalence rate of 2-2.5% of students struggle and show signs of Prosopagnosia.

What is Prosopagnosia?

Prosopagnosia is a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces. The term come from 2 Greek words "prosopon" = "face", "agnosia" = "lack of knowledge ".

The disorders has several levels, in some cases people with prosopagnosia will only have difficulty recognizing a familiar face, in other cases sufferers will be unable to discriminate between unknown faces and in some rare cases the person is unable to recognize their own face.

On a positive note, Prosopagnosia is not related to memory dysfunction, impaired vision, learning disabilities or memory loss.

Causes of Prosopagnosia

Research have showed that prosopagnosia can result from:

• A stroke
• A traumatic brain injury
• Certain neurodegenerative diseases

Prosopagnosia is thought to be the result of abnormalities, damage or impairment in the right fusiform gyrus, a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception and memory.

Some new-born can also be born with prosopagnosia, Congenital prosopagnosia appears to run in families, which makes it likely to be the result of a genetic mutation or deletion.

Doctors and researchers have divide this disorder into 2 sections: Apperceptive and Associative.

Apperceptive Prosopagnosia

People with this type of prosopagnosia, cannot make any sense of faces and are unable to make decisions when they are presented with pictures of different faces. These individuals are unable to recognize familiar or unfamiliar faces, in many cases they are not even able to recognize their own children or close family.

However, thanks to non-face clues like clothing, hairstyle or voice; people who suffer this disorder are able to recognize people.

Associative Prosopagnosia

People with this type of prosopagnosia, are able to say whether photos of people's faces are the same or different, many times they are able to make sense of some face information, but will not be able to subsequently identify the person. They also might not be able to provide any personal information about them, for example: their name, occupation or when they were last encountered.

Treatment Options

Several treatment options are available that can help people with prosopagnosia. The focus of any treatment is to help individuals with prosopagnosia to develop compensatory strategies. A website that can offer you more information is: Faceblind.

New Research is being develop every year and even Sani Dental Group wants to assist.

Treating prosopagnosia in a traditional medical manner is a long and grueling process, however new alternatives are in development. A medical field that is promising is stem cells.

A stem cell is:
“An undifferentiated cell of a multicellular organism that is capable of giving rise to indefinitely more cells of the same type, and from which certain other kinds of cell arise by differentiation.”

We invite you to visit our blog page and learn more about this and many other diseases, as well as the treatments that are available for these.

In addition, you can visit the city of Los Algodones, here our dental clinic offers our visitors numerous dental procedures and all at affordable prices. In 2015, Sani Dental Group will open new facilities, among the many health treatment options that will be offer one of these will be a: Stem Cell Clinic.

Visit our dental clinic and in 2015 our new facilities and see how Sani Dental Group can restore your smile and joy.