Disorders That Affect Consciousness

There are many diseases and conditions that can greatly affect someone’s state of consciousness. Although it is rare to develop some of these conditions, they can cause acute or chronic issues involving the alteration of someone’s normal consciousness. Most conditions do not directly affect consciousness, but affect regions of the brain that can greatly impact the factor and cause immediate and drastic changes in a person’s life.

Disorders Affecting Consciousness: Encephalopathy

There are multiple disorders that can affect consciousness, however, the most prominent one is any of the multiple types of encephalopathy.

Because there are so many forms of encephalopathy, it is the most broad and effective condition in terms of negatively altering consciousness. Encephalopathy is a condition that develops when a person’s brain becomes enlarged due to inflammation caused by an infection, virus, buildup of toxins, or any other number of underlying causes. The most common encephalopathy is most like Hepatic Encephalopathy, which is when the liver becomes inflamed or goes through acute failure, causing a very dense buildup of toxins in the bloodstream, eventually moving to the brain through the carotid artery, meaning a large amount of toxic blood is being transported rapidly.

Because of this event, the brain become inflamed and causes a number of neurological symptoms, including altered consciousness, such as mood swings and inability to understand what’s actually happening around the person. This is just one type of encephalopathy.

Brain Tumor

Another type of condition that can cause alteration of consciousness is any type of abnormal growth in the brain, specifically a brain tumor.

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This brain tumor can cause regions of the brain to perform differently, causing a number of neurological symptoms. Generally, when a brain tumor grows incredibly large and starts to expand toward the lateral sides of the cranium, the tumor can possibly press against the vestibular nerve, causing vertigo, which is a form of disorientation. Disorientation is a condition when one is unable to move their body or see in a stable manner, causing a number of issues and is technically seen as a disorder. Additionally, the brain tumor pressing on the nerve can also cause voices to be heard by the patient, which can be mistaken as schizophrenia. Although schizoid diseases are not entirely considered different states of consciousness, this specific, rare condition is.

Night Terrors

Night terrors can also be considered an altered form of your consciousness during a dream. Night terrors are generally caused by underlying conditions and severe night terrors do not happen on their own without a general reason. Night terrors can be caused from a very old, generally vaccinated virus, the Measles. The measles are a generally dormant, and non-active virus, meaning they are generally harmless. However, when the virus mutates and grows and becomes active, it can cause a very large amount of damage to one’s neurological functions. Additionally, when treated incorrectly, the measles can cause auditory hallucinations, due to the chemical reactions that happen in the brain. The final diagnosis for this condition is subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. It is a chronic progressive brain disorder that causes inflammation in the brain caused by the measles virus.

Coma

The deepest and most dangerous form of altered consciousness is a coma. Generally unexplained due to an endless number of possibilities, Comas are a type of condition that develop due to an instability in the brain. A number of factors can go into the occurrence of a coma, including stroke, tumors, diabetes, infections, seizures, hypoxic brain disorder, toxins, etc. Coma’s are considered a vegetated state where a person becomes entirely unresponsive to all forms of stimuli including pain. They are still alive, but it’s as if their body is entirely asleep, until they are able to wake up, which is generally an unknown variable or amount of time. People who don’t wake up from comas generally die, because of the underlying condition, not the coma.

Psychosis

The final most prominent form of differentiated consciousness due to disease or condition is psychosis. Psychosis is a condition where the brain causes a dysfunction where the person affected becomes entirely separated from reality. Most of the time, psychosis is a symptom of an underlying cause, such as schizophrenia, or caused by drug use, prescribed or illegal. A large amount of the time, patients are unaware of the fact that they are going through an episode of psychosis and generally don’t know what to do if they are conscious of the fact that they had one.

Ultimately, many forms of consciousness are affected by underlying causes such as psychosis, encephalopathy, encephalitis, virus, infections, toxins, brain tumors, and many other conditions that are chronic and generally progressive.