1/13. Amnesic syndrome with bilateral mesial temporal lobe involvement in Hashimoto's encephalopathy.A 25-year-old woman presented with a subacute confusional state, headaches, unsteadiness, myoclonus, seizures, and an amnesic syndrome as a manifestation of Hashimoto's encephalopathy. Investigations showed biochemical hypothyroidism, raised thyroid microsomal antibodies, and weakly positive antineuronal antibodies. A T2-weighted MRI of the brain showed bilateral symmetric areas of increased signal in the mesial temporal lobes and hippocampi that had a low signal intensity on T1-weighted imaging. Despite clinical and radiologic improvement after steroid and thyroid hormone replacement therapy, a severe amnesic syndrome with associated localized MRI abnormalities persists.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/13. Myelopathy and amnesia following accidental electrical injury.OBJECTIVE: documentation of MRI and neurophysiological changes following accidental electrical injury. SETTING: Tertiary care referral teaching hospital at Lucknow, india. RESULTS: A 30-year-old lady developed amnesia and spastic paraparesis with loss of pin prick sensation below the second thoracic spinal segment following electrocution. Her spinal MRI was normal and cranial MRI revealed T2 hyperintensity in the right putamen. Peroneal, sural and electromyography were normal. Tibial central sensory conduction time was normal but central motor conduction time to lower limbs and right upper limb was prolonged. CONCLUSION: Neurophysiological study and MRI may help in understanding the pathophysiological basis of neurological sequelae following electrical injury.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
3/13. Cases from the aerospace residents' teaching file. Case #48. A student pilot is referred for evaluation of a "head injury with post-traumatic amnesia".A student pilot is referred for evaluation of a "head injury with post-traumatic amnesia." The case study presents a temporal association of injury and symptoms that were assumed to be related. A differential diagnosis of an amnestic syndrome is presented. Transient global amnesia is discussed as a possible etiology until an EEG revealed an epileptiform abnormality. The aeromedical implications, military and FAA, of the clinical and electrophysiologic findings are discussed.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 4keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
4/13. Pathologically proven frontotemporal dementia presenting with severe amnesia.Early and severe memory impairment is generally held to be an exclusion criterion for the clinical diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). However, clinical experience suggests that some patients with otherwise typical FTD can be amnesic from presentation, or even present solely with amnesia. A review of severe amnesia at presentation in patients with pathologically proven FTD is therefore warranted. The present study examined the records of all patients in the joint Cambridge-Sydney neuropathological series of patients with dementia and a pathological diagnosis of FTD to identify those for whom memory complaints were dominant at presentation. Eight of 71 patients met these criteria. For two patients, memory loss was the only complaint; for one patient, memory loss was accompanied by personality change; for two patients, memory loss was accompanied by prominent dysexecutive symptoms; and for three patients, memory loss was accompanied by apathy but no other behavioural changes. In seven patients local specialist teams initially diagnosed Alzheimer's disease; four patients entered anticholinesterase drug trials. All eight later developed behavioural features: in four, the diagnosis was revised to FTD, while in four the diagnosis of FTD was made only on neuropathological examination after death. In conclusion, severe amnesia at presentation in FTD is commoner than previously thought and the clinical consensus criteria for the diagnosis of FTD may need to be revised. The underlying basis of the memory impairments in patients with FTD may be heterogeneous, with different explanations in different subgroups.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
5/13. An investigation of the effects of prospective memory training.A within-subject operant design was used to evaluate the efficacy of prospective memory training in a 51-year-old brain-injured male with a severe memory impairment. Training consisted of repetitive administration of prospective memory tasks whereby the subject was given actions to perform at specified future times. The length of time between task administration and task execution was systematically lengthened. Probes were taken evaluating generalization to performance on naturalistic, real-life prospective memory tasks and to performance on retrospective memory or recall measures. Results suggested a significant and steady increase in the subject's prospective memory ability over time; however, changes were not experimentally controlled, thus the data are descriptive in nature. Methodological limitations and issues pertinent to the future investigation of prospective memory are discussed at length, in the hope of encouraging further evaluation of this preliminary, promising technique.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
6/13. Functional ("psychogenic") amnesia.patients who present with severely impaired memory functioning without a discernable neurological cause typically have experienced one or more severely stressful life events. These patients, who are described as having "psychogenic" or "dissociative" amnesia, typically differ from patients with the neurologic amnestic syndrome in that memory for their personal life histories is much more severely affected than is their ability to learn and retain new information; that is, they have isolated retrograde amnesia. Recent cognitive and brain imaging research has begun to reveal some of the cerebral mechanisms underlying functional amnesia, but this disorder remains best conceptualized as a relatively rare form of illness-simulating behavior rather than a disease. Neuropsychological assessment is often useful in revealing the circumscribed nature of the patient's performance deficits, the spared functions that can be brought to bear in rehabilitation, and the emotional disorders requiring psychiatric treatment. Controlled treatment trials are nonexistent, but case reports suggest that supportive psychotherapy, systematic relaxation training, hypnosis, and sedative/anxiolytic medications are useful in facilitating recovery. These treatments are often combined with a psychoeducational approach that essentially reteaches the patient his or her life story.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
7/13. Navigation around london by a taxi driver with bilateral hippocampal lesions.The time-scale of hippocampal involvement in supporting episodic memory remains a keenly debated topic, with disagreement over whether its role is temporary or permanent. Recently, there has been interest in how navigation by hippocampally-compromised patients in environments learned long ago speaks to this issue. However, identifying patients with damage that is primarily hippocampal, control subjects matched for navigation experience, and testing their in situ navigation, present substantial problems. We met these challenges by using a highly accurate and interactive virtual reality simulation of central london (UK) to assess the navigation ability of a licensed london taxi driver who had sustained bilateral hippocampal damage. In this test, patient TT and matched control taxi drivers drove a virtual london taxi along the streets they had first learned 40 years before. We found that the hippocampus is not required for general orientation in the city either in first person or survey perspectives, detailed topographical knowledge of landmarks and their spatial relationships, or even for active navigation along some routes. However, in his navigation TT was very reliant on main artery or 'A' roads, and became lost when navigation depended instead on non-A roads. We conclude that the hippocampus in humans is necessary for facilitating navigation in places learned long ago, particularly where complex large-scale spaces are concerned, and successful navigation requires access to detailed spatial representations.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
8/13. Training use of compensatory memory books: a three stage behavioral approach.A systematic, structured training sequence for teaching individuals with severe memory impairments to independently utilize a compensatory memory book is reviewed. The training sequence is theoretically motivated, incorporating both principles of learning theory as well as aspects of memory known to be preserved in many patients with even severe amnestic disorders. This paper describes the components of a functional memory book system as well as the three-stage behavioral training procedure. An illustrative case study reviewing the training and resultant effective use of a memory book system for daily living and employment in a severely memory-impaired patient is provided.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
9/13. Diminished ability to interpret and report internal states after bilateral medial temporal resection: case H.M.These experiments centered around H.M., a 54-year-old man who became amnesic 27 years ago after a bilateral resection in the medial temporal lobe region for epilepsy. In order to document the clinical reports that he rarely comments on such internal states as pain, hunger, and thirst, his thermal pain perception was examined in relation to his other somatosensory capacities, and his reports of hunger and thirst were assessed before and after meals. In order to investigate the effect of limited memory ability on the reporting of internal states, H.M.'s performance was compared with that of 5 other subjects with global amnesia. The results provided evidence that H.M.'s information about internal states is less available or less accessible than normal and that his impairment is not attributable to his well-documented memory deficit. Instead, it is believed that the bilateral resection of the amygdala accounts for H.M.'s poor appreciation of his internal states.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
10/13. The anterograde and retrograde retrieval ability of a patient with amnesia due to encephalitis.A patient with amnesia due to encephalitis was previously described in 1976 as having normal short-term memory and an intact ability to perform semantic analysis. Despite this ability, his retention beyond the limits of short-term memory was nearly nil. The present investigation sought to evaluate more completely the nature of this patient's retrieval deficit using a series of paradigms developed subsequent to his initial testing. Once again it was discovered that while his intact analytic abilities allowed retention of material in working memory, as soon as that working capacity was exceeded, retrieval of information became nearly impossible. It became apparent that the patient could not discriminate between a cue's most recently analyzed associate and the strongest existing associate to that cue in his semantic hierarchy. An analysis of his retrograde memory ability showed that he could retrieve almost no real episodes of either a public or private nature from his past. Instead, he seemed to rely on generalizations from his semantic memory to reconstruct "probable" events.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = tea (Clic here for more details about this article) |
| | Next -> |