The Transient Global Amnesia Syndrome

IN 1964 C. Miller Fisher and Raymond D. Adams reported in detail 17 cases of a new syndrome which they called transient global amnesia, 1 characterized by a sudden loss of ability to lay down lasting memory traces of any kind, essentially without other neurological impairment, lasting for a period of hours with apparent complete recovery. These authors were able to find only one previous report describing a group of 12 patients who probably also represent examples of this syndrome. 2 Since then, we have been impressed with the relative frequency of occurrence of this phenomenon. In the space of one year, seven cases have been referred to the Division of Neurology, four of these while the patient was having an attack. Four patients were seen personally by one of us (E.C.S), two of them during the attack. Aside from the question of etiology, which has not yet been