Face Blindness: 10 Shocking Facts You Might Not Know About Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia - The Inability to Recognize Your Loved Ones

“Prosopagnosia” Or “Face Blindness” is  a popular disorder, it is known as acute brain disorder of face perception in which a person is not able to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face.

Just imagine yourself at a situation where you are not able to acknowledge your loved ones, friends, family and at times your own face. Isn’t it horrible? We cannot even imagine how destructive that could be for those who are suffering from this disorder.

The prosopagnosia can affect you in the worst imaginable way. You are not able to recognize yourself. Imagine, looking in the mirror and trying to recognize all of the features of your face, that is really traumatic. That can cause unimaginable confusion and distress. There are a lot of things you might not know about prosopagnosia let’s find out here:

1) First Case Of Prosopagnosia

At first, the condition of prosopagnosia was derived as brain damages, but now it is also known as the congenital disorder. The first time the prosopagnosia was noticed in the 19th century in the year 1947 by Joachim Bodamer (German neurologist). He recognized the presence of face blindness in two people who were showing the symptoms of agnosia.

Agnosia is nothing but again the inability to identify things due to the brain injury. Basically, he was the one who actually named this disorder as Face blindness and Prosopagnosia. In which the Prosopon stands for the face in Greek.

2) Some People Born With This Neurological Disorder

Face blindness is one of the disorder that people seem to have been born with it. Prosopagnosia could occur due to an abnormality in the part of the brain that boost memory lapse. The research said that this disorder of brain can easily go undetected in those born with the condition and due to which many people with this condition go untreated.

3) Prosopagnosia Leads to Anxiety & Depression

Obviously, the thought where you are not able to acknowledge your loved ones and yourself can even scare you badly so, you can think about the people and their mental state who are actually facing it in real life. Doctors said that a person with Prosopagnosia disorder can behave strangely, and at times it leads to anxiety, depression, and fear of social affairs. Face blindness is one big trouble can cause problems in personal relationships and in the workplace.

4) People Feel Blank/Empty

People suffering from Prosopagnosia neurological disease often seem to confuse in identifying the characters of normal movie celebrities and television celebrities. Well, often people forget the name of some character but people with Prosopagnosia do it frequently. Also when they greet people, they don’t recognize them. Even in severe cases, they fail to recognize their family members, a close friend and even themselves.

5) Prosopagnosia in Children

Prosopagnosia in children is not a new thing even they react quite similar as adults do. But, Prosopagnosia is a dreadful disease that adults sometimes fail to handle it so, you imagine how terrifying it can be on a child.

But, children with prosopagnosia might not feel as much fear when meeting with strangers but, their inability to differentiate a stranger can lead to anxiety and they might start living with the thought of losing their parents.

6) The Misconception - Prosopagnosia People Can’t See Faces

One of the most common misinterpretations people have about this disorder is that people with face blindness can’t able to see faces or they see blur faces. But, that’s not true. In fact, people with face-blindness also see the faces as everyone else does, it’s just that they face a hard time translating the exact identity of the person and the relationship they share with the particular person.

7) It Can Cause From Brain Injury Also

Prosopagnosia is not only a birth-related disorder even it can cause from a stroke, brain injury, and other degenerative diseases of the brain which is like really dangerous. That’s why doctors always ask immediately cure for any head injury.

8) There is No Cure For Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia or face blindness is a strange and dangerous disease. But, at present, there is still no proper cure for prosopagnosia. Some research revealed that medications can be performed to solve the problem of anxiety or depression. Also, there are some training programs available to assist people with face blindness.

9) Prosopagnosia People & Clue Games

As we discussed that there is no exact treatment available for the face blindness, but sometimes people who have face blindness as the result of a stroke, head injury or brain trauma can try to recognize people by using other clues for example someplace, some sign, etc.

10) There are Two Types Of Prosopagnosia

Early the doctors used to believe that face blindness occurs due to the brain injury or from birth. But, this is not the case anymore in fact, some experts discovered the 2 types of conditions i.e. the types of prosopagnosia- Acquired prosopagnosia and Developmental prosopagnosia.

• Acquired Prosopagnosia: Acquired prosopagnosia is a type of face blindness that actually happens due to brain injuries such as encephalitis and head injury, stroke and brain trauma. Acquired prosopagnosia has been known for decades and firstly discovered by the German Neurologist- Bodamer in the year 1947.
  
• Developmental Prosopagnosia: Developmental prosopagnosia has the direct connection with the genetic disorder. In this condition, people further face difficulties to recognize the close ones, family members, and friends. According to the reports it has been stated that around 2 percent of the population is affected by the developmental prosopagnosia.
  

No wonder, the condition of face blindness is really dreadful for the one who is going through it, even it can be very embarrassing

In short, you meet someone who clearly knows you, but you have no idea who they are. We cannot even imagine the pain they actually feel that time. Whether you call it memory lapse or a brain disorder, face blindness or prosopagnosia is a hot topic for the scientist over the decades and they are still trying to find out its actual cure.