Transient global amnesia

Transient Global Amnesia (TGA) is a clinical syndrome characterized by temporary inability to form new memories described as anterograde amnesia. It is associated with retrograde amnesia and repetitive questioning. Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a syndrome of temporary memory loss, or amnesia. Although earlier descriptions of transitory memory loss have been cited, especially that of Benon in 1909, the modern syndrome of TGA was first described in medical literature in 1956 by Bender, and in the same year by Guyotat and Courjon.

In 1964, C. Miller Fisher and Raymond Adams coined the term “Transient Global Amnesia (TGA)” by reporting attacks suffered by 17 patients. According to these authors, TGA usually occurred in middle-aged or elderly people and was characterized by the abrupt onset of anterograde amnesia, accompanied by repetitive questioning.

Since then, there has been much speculation about the patho-physiology of TGA. Non-convulsive epileptic seizures, migraine, paradoxical embolism via a patent foramen ovale, and particularly transient ischemic attacks have been proposed as potential mechanisms.

In 1995, Attarian and colleagues reported an individual with transient amnesia who also had cerebral thrombophlebitis. In 1985 Caplan proposed the criteria to define TGA and reserved the term for witnessed attacks of definite amnesia without disturbance of consciousness, focal neurological symptoms or epileptic features in patients who do not have active epilepsy and a recent head injury, and which resolve within 24 hours.
Transient global amnesia