Prosopagnosia (face blindness)

What is it?

Prosopagnosia is a big, clumsy word for having difficulty recognising people’s faces.

What are the symptoms?

You will still see the parts of a face, but all faces may look the same to you.

Some people may not be able to tell the differences between strangers and people they don’t know well.

Others might not recognise the faces of friends and family, or even their own face.

Other symptoms can include difficulty with:

■ Recognising emotions on people’s faces.

■ Recognising people’s gender and their age.

■ Recognising characters in TV programmes and films and following plots.

■ Finding your way around. Difficulty recognising faces may make it harder to form relationships, or cause problems at work and school.

What causes it?

Prosopagnosia is commonly caused by a problem with the part of the brain that processes information about faces, and it may run in families.

It can also result from brain damage, such as following a stroke, head injury, inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), Alzheimer’s disease or autism.

What’s the treatment?

There’s no treatment, but there are certain things you can do to help recognise people:

■ Do tell people about the condition when you meet them.

■ Ask people you’re close to for help identifying others.

■ Ask people to introduce themselves when you greet them.

■ Use people’s voices or body language to tell them apart.

■ Make a note of distinctive features about a person such as hairstyle, jewellery or accessories.

■ Use name tags or write down the names of colleagues and where they sit at work.