"Psychometric" assessment during transient global amnesia.

A patient "psychometrically" assessed during an attack of transient global amnesia showed total inability to form new long term memories but normal immediate recall. There was nearly perfect preservation of other psychological functions with good recall of distant events and no dysphasia, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, right-left disorientation, constructional apraxia or visual agnosia. Calculation was probably also normal. Some of the 5 previously reported patients, who have been similarly studied during attacks of transient global amnesia, showed evidence of damage to the brain beyond the hippocampal forniceal system. The present patient demonstrates the market selectivity of memory disturbance in "pure transient global amnesia".