Transient Global Amnesia - Symptoms

Symptoms

A person having an attack of TGA has almost no capacity to establish new memories, but generally appears otherwise mentally alert and lucid, possessing full knowledge of self-identity and identity of close family, and maintaining intact perceptual skills and a wide repertoire of complex learned behavior. The individual simply cannot recall anything that happened outside the last few minutes, while memory for more temporally distant events may or may not be largely intact. The degree of amnesia is profound, and, in the interval during which the individual is aware of his or her condition, is often accompanied by anxiety. The diagnostic criteria for TGA, as defined for purposes of clinical research, include:

• The attack was witnessed by a capable observer and reported as being a definite loss of recent memory (anterograde amnesia).
• There was an absence of clouding of consciousness or other cognitive impairment other than amnesia.
• There were no focal neurological signs or deficits during or after the attack.
• There were no features of epilepsy, or active epilepsy in the past two years, and the patient did not have any recent head injury.
• The attack resolved within 24 hours.