Classification of transient epileptic amnesia attacks: Two types of amnestic seizures, the pure amnesia type and partial amnesia type.

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.