Transient global amnesia--full recovery without persistent cognitive impairment.

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a clinical syndrome of unknown etiology characterized by sudden onset anterograde amnesia, which was thought to resolve completely. However, some authors have also suggested permanent memory impairment. It is unclear whether these results reflect a true persistent damage or a simply too short assessment interval in the context of a prolonged recovery phase after TGA. To evaluate the cognitive long-term outcome, 16 patients who had suffered from TGA at a mean of 3 years before and 15 healthy controls underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery. No significant differences between patients' and controls' cognitive performance were found, irrespectively of the analyzed neuropsychological domain. Therefore we hypothesize that TGA usually does not cause persistent cognitive deficits due to a generally transient and prognostic benign character.