Transient epileptic amnesia: clinical report of a cohort of patients

Transient epileptic amnesia represents a seizure disorder usually with onset in the middle-elderly age and good response to low dosages of therapy. We describe the clinical, electroencephalographic (EEG) and neuroimaging features of 11 patients with a temporal lobe epilepsy characterized by amnesic seizures as the sole or the main symptom. We outlined the relevance of a detailed clinical history to recognize amnesic seizures and to avoid the more frequent misdiagnoses. Moreover, the response to monotherapy was usually good although the epilepsy was symptomatic of acquired lesions of the fronto-temporal lobes in the majority of the patients.