Prevention and Treatment of Memory and Cognitive Disorders in Traditional Medicine: a Review Study

Background and Despite the increasing prevalence of dementia, there is no known effective treatment for this disease. Iranian traditional medicine has attention to old age and its diseases. This research was conducted to identify the cognitive and memory disorders in view of traditional medicine literature. This study is a review of the literature in Iranian traditional medicine. The study population included content related to the topic of Iranian Traditional Medicine Books. Purposeful and systematic sampling based on dependency and relationship to the study subjects was performed by using Noor software. A comprehensive search was conducted with the key words "eldery", "mashayekh", "heram", "kohol", “memory", "zekr", "hefz", "Amnesia" and "Hygiene" was taken. Data were collected by recorded of written documents, and conducted a content analysis. According to the texts of traditional medicine, memory loss or mental disability is caused by the dominance of cold, wet, or dry temperament in the back of the brain. The treatment is based on temperament. So traditional medicine offers Hygiene orders and a variety of treatments. Many treatments about the prevention and treatment of memory disorders have been proposed in Iranian traditional medicine. Better understanding of these principle scan play a significant role and can solve problem of this disease and its increased prevalence in the elderly.