Medical management of a patient with amnestic disorders and emergency care include: A head CT scan without intravenous contrast should be obtained if CNS infection, trauma, or a cerebral vascular accident is suspected. When alcohol, drugs and/or toxins are suspected, consider serum ethanol, salicylate, acetaminophen, carbon monoxide, and other specific drug or toxins level as indicated.

Oxygen saturation, or ABG with carbon monoxide level, may be diagnostic. Laboratory studies may be helpful for ruling in or excluding specific diagnoses that cause amnestic disorder symptoms. Apathy, lack of initiative, and emotional blandness are common. That is, the individual may create imaginary events to fill in the memory gaps. The individual is prone to confabulation. There is an inability to recall events from the recent past and events from the remote past. Disorientation to place and time may occur with profound amnesia. The following symptoms have been identified with amnestic disorders: This type of amnestic disorder is related to the persisting effects of substances such as alcohol, sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics, and other medications, and environmental toxins the term “persisting” is used to indicate that the symptoms persist long after the effects of substance intoxication or substance withdrawal has subsided.

Substance-induced persisting amnestic disorder.

The symptoms may be associated with head trauma, cerebrovascular disease, cerebral neoplastic disease, cerebral anoxia, herpes simplex encephalitis, poorly controlled insulin-dependent diabetes, and surgical intervention to the brain transient amnestic syndromes can also occur from epileptic seizures, electroconvulsive therapy, severe migraine, and drug overdose.

Amnestic disorder due to a general medical condition.

The DSM-V identifies the following categories as etiologies for the syndrome of symptoms known as amnestic disorders: In general, amnestic disorders are caused by structural or chemical damage to parts of the brain.

Amnestic disorders can occur in isolation, but in practice, they are most commonly seen within the more global syndromes of delirium or dementia.Infantile amnesia is a common phenomenon wherein most people can’t remember the first three to five years of life.Transient global amnesia occurs with confusion or agitation that comes and goes repeatedly over the course of several hours.Anterograde amnesia refers to an inability to acquire new information or experiences occurring during the period of impairment.Retrograde amnesia refers to a loss of memory for events before the onset of lesion or condition.Amnesia refers to a specific deficit in new learning and memory.Amnestic disorders are characterized by an inability to learn new information (short-term memory deficit) despite normal attention and an inability to recall previously learned information (long-term memory deficit).

Major types of amnesia