Prosopagnosia

 

No the title does not refer to an unreleased Def Leppard album, I have had a number of queries from people regarding some of my identified health issues I suffer from, at one point I thought I was suffering from early onset dementia, I even joked about it while I was teaching, which I got reported to HR for, thankfully somebody else on the course (the beauty of working in a teaching establishment) thought I had another condition which they did some tests on me (during work time) and they were very happy when the diagnosis came back as they had never come across a case personally, here comes the technical bit, and no I didn’t write it, it comes directly from a medical site!

Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision-making) remain intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute brain damage (acquired prosopagnosia), but a congenital or developmental form of the disorder also exists, with a prevalence of 2–2.5%.

A common misconception is that prosopagnosics see faces' contours and details as blurry or distorted. The condition is not characterized by warped visuals. Seeing distorted faces is a common symptom of prosopometamorphopsia, not prosopagnosia.

Acquired prosopagnosia results from occipital-temporal lobe damage and is most often found in adults. It is subdivided into apperceptive and associative prosopagnosia.

There are no widely accepted treatments. Though there have been several attempts at remediation, no therapies have demonstrated lasting improvements across a group of prosopagnosics. Prosopagnosics often learn to use "piecemeal" or "feature-by-feature" recognition strategies. This may involve secondary clues such as clothing, gait, hair colour, skin colour, body shape, and voice.

Because the face seems to function as an important identifying feature in memory, it can be difficult for prosopagnosics to keep track of information about people and socialize normally.

Prosopagnosia leads to social challenges, as inability to recognize faces can be misinterpreted as lack of interest in others. Using visual or auditory cues in place of facial recognition is unreliable and tiring. The condition can also be emotionally strenuous to mask, increasing the likelihood of social anxiety and depression.

I was flabbergasted, as I have been having issues for a number of years and had reduced my ability to reply to people, on hair styles their gait and even voices, I even overheard some people say I was “difficult” I’m really not but I do struggle in “social” situations, I moved back to my hometown over 23 years ago and I said to my brother that I hadn’t seen any of my old friends in that time, this explains a lot, I’m not being stand offish I am literally face blind, I’m not as some people think difficult, I do recognise myself (I’m sorry to say) .

My issue was probably caused by several hits to the head (no jokes please) I fell down some stone stairs at school (at age 11) in which I lost my sense of smell, it does come back periodically really intensely but only lasts about ten minutes at a time, it was because of this injury that I was prone to fits of rage especially if I was slapped across the head, I fractured my skull and it took nearly three years to heal, it came in handy after a couple of incidents with a couple of bullies and I kind of went bat shot crazy on them, people tended to leave me alone after that, an incident in the army involving falling from a helicopter (only a short distance) and my NCO dropping my rifle down to me (oops) and my helmet had come off, again I was dazed and confused for a couple of days(wasn’t I always) and the last one was at my last place of work doing a job on the back of a pick-up instead of setting up a mobile scaffold, we decided to work off the back of a pick-up truck as it was quicker (and it was job and knock quite litrally) and I had an argument with a steel girder in a multi-story car park, I lost! I then spent three days in hospital recovering, but that seems to be the root cause of my issue.

It’s not going to get any worse and it’s certainly not going to kill me, however there isn’t any cure either at least nothing definitive, so no not being difficult or awkward or even ignorant if you know me and you see me say hello, honestly you will make me the happiest person around and hopefully I can stop thinking that the world hates me!

Thankfully after the slight detour the blog is getting itself back on track as I have a number already written and hot to trot, sorry the condition doesn’t stop me from typing up this drivel, I thought I better say it before anybody else di, stay safe, stay alive and I will see you around next time but until then…..Toodles!