Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a syndrome characterized by an abrupt, profound but temporary loss of short-term memory associated with severe retrograde amnesia for events during the attack. During an episode of transient global amnesia, the recall of recent events simply vanishes, that the patient can't remember where he or how he got there.
During an episode, patents remain conscious but may be bewildered, anxious and stressed and usually they are cognizant of their memory difficulties. They are, however, able to use contextual clues and general world knowledge for making inferences about their situation.
When confronted with a failure of memory, patients may try to guess what they should remember, but they do not spontaneously confabulate.
Neurological symptoms during an attack may include a complaint of headache (sometimes consistent with migraine), nausea, and vomiting, and sometimes dizziness and sleepiness.
Episodes of TGA are of brief duration, usually lasting from between 1-10 h but rarely less than 1 h. Mean duration in two large series was 4.2 h and 5.6 h.
Transient global amnesia
