When Your Brain Can't Accept Reality: Anosognosia

If patients seem to be unaware of their obvious conditions and symptoms, it might not be that they're in denial, but their brain might actually prevent them from realizing their disabilities.

Hosted by: Hank Green
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[carissstewart]

Doctor: Sir, you have anosognosia.
Patient: No, I haven't.

[aliperry]

I’ve actually seen this first hand. I’m a nurse on a neuro critical care unit and we deal with a lot of large strokes that cause complete paralysis and neglect of one side of the body. I had a lady tell me over and over than if we would just unhook her from the monitors that she could walk to the bathroom, when in reality she couldn’t move or feel the left side of her body at all. When I asked her how her left side was doing, she would tell me it was working just fine. The brain really is fascinating.

[gavart]

“You’re blind”
“What? No I’m not”
“Is the light on?”
“Tis”
“‘Tis not, youre in the dark”
“Ahh, forgot my glasses”

[rahmahmohamed]

So many weird conditions in this world!!!

[ziqi]

Can't accept reality you say?


*POLITICAL COMMENTARY INTENSIFIES*

[KimberlyLetsGo]

As a teen, I worked at a local, small town restaurant. There was a visiting older couple that came in and the wife probably had had a stroke. She couldn't talk but just make noise. So when she ordered, I expected her husband to at least interject what she wanted to order. He never did. I just would order for her what he ordered. But, that was a really tough position to put a small town teenager in.

[cdmurray]

is there a name for when your dreams are so realistic you have trouble figuring out what actually happened and what was a dream?

[daphne]

Reminds me also a little of a dementia/alzheimers lady I met a long time ago when I had a little summer job as a teen in a retirement home. She would ask me everyday if we would be so kind to let her stay one more night and if she could please keep te same room (she thought she was in a hotel). The first time I naively corrected her and said "this is a retirement home and you live here of course you have the same room". She seemed panicked and upset after that and said to me "but this is not where I'm supposed to be! I'm going to stay at my sisters place" and she walked out. (I found later her sister had already died some years prior and did not even live in the same town). She came back a little later after walking around for a bit and asked the same thing again, if she could please stay one more night in the same room. This time I did not want to cause her upset and told her "madam, you are our honoured guest we will prepare the same room for you". She was so happy when she walked of that time. Completely unable to see the reality, or interpret it, around her. Though she did seem to recognize the building and could find her way back by herself. The brain is very weird sometimes.

[Henchman_Holding_Wrench]

Sounds like the people who can't stop arguing on Twitter and Youtube comments.

[coffeecat]

Anton-babinski syndrome is a weird one. As someone who is blind… Without my glasses, I only see colors at about 2 feet away. It’s not enough to really distinguish what an object is. Before they did a surgery to remove a cataract which had grown so thick it ruptured my lens and caused me to basically not have any light perception, I began to suffer from Charles bonnet syndrome. I’ve heard some people say the hallucinations frightened them. They didn’t for me. I knew what I was saying wasn’t real. It was in far too much detail to be something I was actually seeing. They did not speak to me, it was as if I was just watching some sort of a movie. It was a very odd experience. Now that the cataract is removed and the pieces of my lens removed from my eye, I still see stuff. Now though it’s kind of like purple and green and a weird shade of blue TV static. Before the things I saw were animals walking across the room. Some blue and turquoise squares that stretched and moved oddly, I saw people pacing back-and-forth, streams of them like they were two big wines I’ve never ending travelers going One Direction or the other in my room. It was definitely a strange experience.

[Mandiness]

This is pretty fascinating. You've given me something to research later this evening!

[Joshwism]

"for your brains to keep doing their job, they need sleep"

HEY STOP THAT

[thestateofalaska]

I reject your reality and substitute my own

[MrWombatty]

Not surprising that after someone has a head-injury or a stroke, that they may experience a perception problem (rather than it being denial issue)!

[omerk]

Hank sometimes learning is just scary. Knowing so many ways that my life can get sooo out of its track is not easy. 😱

[coryman]

"Our brains work really hard for us, and to do their job they need sleep"
Wow Hank, it's like you just know it's 3:35 AM and I'm here watching this when I should have been asleep a good two hours ago or more D:

[Internetshadow]

That is less lack of self-awareness and more lack of awareness of a condition afflicting one's body. There seemed to be nothing regarding their awareness of their personhood.

[Emiliapocalypse]

Welp, woke up feeling fine, but now I’m convinced I have a disease I’m convinced I don’t have.

[blackswan]

anosognosia is common during manic episodes as well.
Full-on mania is the only time I have to deal with anosognosia.

[richardschuerger]

One of my cats died, and when I called in the other cat to see/get closure, it acted like the dead cat's body wasn't even there. I was witnessing a cat go through denial. This kind of emotional defense mechanism is very old.