Transient Global Amnesia (eBook)

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is one of the most mysterious clinical medical conditions in Neurology and Psychology. Occurring usually only once in middle to late age, the affected person is suddenly affected with memory loss, for the past, the present, and briefly, the future. Repetitive questioning without learning the answers supplied marks the typical case while frightened family members and significant others labor to bring the patient into hospital for scanning and medical evaluation. Although the cut off time for duration is 24 hours, most cases clear in 4-6 hours, with no memory of what happened during the elapsed time. This medical neurology textbook deals with cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology issues as the author reviewed the previous 2 existing textbooks on TGA, the last of which was published in 1991, plus over 500 articles from the recent medical literature. The book starts with the early history of amnesia in the psychiatric and neurologic literature leading up to Bender’s seminal article in 1955. The subject is divided into: Clinical EEG CAT scan SPECT scan PET scan Sonogram MRI scan Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) Associated medical conditions TGA and stroke TGA reoccurrence TGA review articles TGA etiology. It ends with a chapter on clinical work up and treatment. This neurology textbook is an extensive review of the subject with 554 bibliography references and 45 digital images and is written especially for the clinical behavioral neurologist, psychiatrist, or psychologist. It is the first modern review of the subject in 21 years and it discusses the exciting DWI/MRI findings which have set the neurology world on fire. No recent textbook has reviewed transient global amnesia in such detail as this book. This same painstaking and elaborate literature review style is evidenced throughout the book, placing into one compendium a body of data and references on Transient Global Amnesia not available anywhere else.