[Amnestic syndrome caused by cerebral infarction in the right medial temporal lobe--case report]

We report here a case of amnestic syndrome with executive dysfunction and attention deficit caused by cerebral infarction in the right temporal lobe was reported. An 80-year-old, right-handed female with complaints of memory impairment, was admitted to our hospital. She had neither motor paresis nor sensory disturbances. She exhibited disorientation, retrograde amnesia, anterograde amnesia, executive dysfunction and attention deficit. Although her immediate recall and remote memory were almost intact, her recent memory was moderately impaired. Both verbal memory and non-verbal memory were impaired. Brain MRI revealed cerebral infarction in the right temporal lobe involving the parahippocampal gyrus, and SPECT demonstrated low perfusion areas in both the cerebral hemispheres involving basal ganglia and the right thalamus. After a 4-month rehabilitation program, her memory impairment improved considerably. We consider that the reason that contributed to these improvement include the fact that her lesion was unilateral and that her executive dysfunction and attention deficit also improved. This finding suggests that memory is related to attention and executive function.