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Classification of transient epileptic amnesia attacks: Two types of amnestic seizures, the pure amnesia type and
Katsuyuki Ukai1,2, Masumi Ito3, Masako Watanabe4
1Department of Psychogeriatrics Kamiiida Daiichi General Hospital Nagoya Japan.
Aim:
Transient epileptic amnesia (TEA) is a type of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy characterized by recurrent amnesia attacks. In 1998, Zeman et al. proposed the following diagnostic criteria for TEA: (1) recurrent, witnessed episodes of amnesia (TEA attacks); (2) other cognitive functions remain intact during attacks; and (3) evidence of epilepsy. It was also reported that patients with TEA often demonstrate two other types of memory symptoms: accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) and autobiographical amnesia (AbA). Both ALF and AbA are persistent memory disorders, but transient epileptic seizures are not.
Methods:
We encountered two cases of TEA associated with two types of amnesia attacks. Therefore, we reviewed TEA cases in the literature to clarify the type of TEA attacks that occurred.
Results:
Based on the extracted TEA cases, including our two cases, we found that there are two main types of TEA attacks, and we discussed their clinical features.
Conclusion:
We propose two main types of TEA attacks; that is, pure amnesia-type and partial amnesia-type seizures. Furthermore, we also propose that topographical amnesia mainly manifests as a type of amnesia attack, rather than as a chronic memory disturbance, such as ALF or AbA.
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