Evaluation Of A Single Patient Suffering From A Severe Korsakoff 's Syndrome

BACKGROUND: Ms. Copeland is a 58-year-old left handed white female who was referred to the Hillcrest memory Diagnostic Center by the emergency room physician for evaluation of memory problems and difficulties in functioning including suicidal ideations.

c) Age-related cognitive impairment (or mild cognitive impairment MCI) – is when an elderly person’s memory starts to wane and they have problems recalling their short term memories, they have difficulty learning new things, their thinking process starts to become reduced and have difficulty concentrating. It is thought that MCI can develop due to alcohol abuse and cognitive decline (poor diet, chronic inflammation, vascular disease and

In Chapter 12 of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Mr. William Thompson suffered from an extreme case of Korsakov’s, also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (Sacks, 1985, p. 109). According to Anderson (2010), Korsakoff syndrome can cause serious damage to one’s hippocampus and temporal lobe due to habitual alcoholism, resulting in amnesia (p. 201). Similar to HM (Anderson, 2010, p. 200), Mr. Thompson suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember nothing for more than a few brief moments (Sacks, p. 109). Anderson (2010) states that anterograde amnesia results in the incapability of creating new memories, leading to fractional or absolute inability to remember something that just happened (p. 201). Yet, one’s long-term memories before the incident remain intact; such as when Mr. Thompson recognized his younger brother, Bob, as he walked by the window (Sacks, 1985, p. 112-113). Mr. Thompson and HM both suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember some long-term memories but not remember new ones, signifying that the neural makeup involved in making fresh memories are diverse from maintaining past memories (Anderson, 2010, p. 202).

Impaired memory R/T neurologic disturbances AEB patient unable to recall recent events. She was to take part in the nursing facilities exercise program more often; this was to promote her physical and psychological well-being (Cox, 2007). Upon visiting her the second time it was clear that she had followed my suggestions. She was able to walk around her room more freely with the aid of her walker, which she did not use as much before. She was also able to recall our last meet in some detail, verbalizing recall of some recent events. The patient is consistent in her routine of care, which aided in her ability to recall events (Cox, 2007). The sense of familiarity form a consistent routine assisted the patient in being able to recall events.

He is alert, attentive, oriented x3. Normal attention and concentration. Normal fund of knowledge. No language errors noted during this exam. Memory testing reveals some problems with short-term memory and amnesia for the event. Patient also was noted to have difficulty following simple and multi-step commands with a slowed comprehension speed.

Neurobiological studies show that both suppression and recall and the creation of false memories are possible. (Kandel, 1994) In this paper both sides of the debate will be analyzed and evaluated.

The show got multiple aspects of Korsakoff syndrome correctly. The woman confessed to the murder of her husband in spite of her inability to remember the act or why she did it. When confronted with questions about her murder by investigators she quickly confessed to the murder and signed confession papers. The doctor came in asked if she had picked up a cat on the side of the road named Millie. She agreed that the event happened and asked how he knew about it. The doctor says she has symptoms of Korsakoff syndrome and that she is extremely suggestible to altered memories and has anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories which seems to be the symptoms she is experiencing. The investigator that works with

Thiamine is an essential vitamin needed by all cells in the body. When the body lacks thiamine for an extended period of time, many problems arise, mainly in the brain and heart. Alcoholism and malnourishment are two of the leading causes of thiamine deficiency. Although fairly rare, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS) can be a severe consequence of thiamine shortage. WKS is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the brain and disrupts the neuronal signaling. Not only does it make daily life very difficult, it can become life-threatening and cause permanent damage. The lack of thiamine interrupts many biochemical pathways in the body, including the pentose phosphate pathway, glycolysis, and the Citric Acid cycle. Disrupting these pathways causes WKS to present along with multiple other complications.

Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome is a neurological disorder. It happens when there is a lack of vitamin b1. It’s more common in those who are heavy drinkers due to the fact that those who drink often, usually have a lack of thiamine (vitamin b1). It can also occur in those who have other disorders such a malabsorbtion, cancer that goes through your body, AIDS, or extremely high thyroid levels. A severe lack of thiamine causes microscopic bleeding throughout the brain and causes scar tissue to develop.

There are two prominent distortions of the episodic memory system: forgetting and the false memory effect. False memory is the propensity to report an event as part of an episodic experience that was not actually present (Holliday, Brainerd, & Reyna, 2011). Several theories give an explanation for this effect, but the most prominent one is the fuzzy trace theory,

Wernicke encephalopathy, a disease that alters brain structure, and Korsakoff syndrome, a memory loss disease, are two conditions that frequently afflict victims together. The sickness occurs in individual who lack vitamin B1 most often due to alcoholism but also because of malnourishment. The condition can also occur in individuals with illnesses or after weight reduction surgery.

Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome is a set of neurocognitive manifestations encompassing Wernicke’s encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s syndrome. Wernicke is an acute neuropsychiatric disease provoked by thiamine deficiency. Korsakoff is a chronic consequence of this deficit that entails prominent damage on memory. Concomitance of ataxia, ophthalmoparesis and changes in mental status occur in 16% of cases. Symptoms appear after the third gestational month, after weeks of persistent vomiting. We report the case of a multiparous woman, aged 28 years, 15 weeks of pregnancy, who had hyperemesis gravidarum from the beginning of gestation, treated in emergency units with symptomatic drugs, admitted to the ICU due to numbness, nystagmus and acute respiratory

Losing one’s memory can be a mysterious affliction, and the causes can be quite complex. Severe memory loss is introduced in author Oliver Sacks’ collection of stories The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and lectures given by professor Jim Davies can help with understanding of some of the concepts introduced in the book. In chapter two, The Lost Mariner, the patient Jimmie is suffering from aspects of both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, which Davies explained as loss of memory of events or facts learned before an event (the event that caused the amnesia), and loss of ability to create new memories after the event, respectively. In more detail, and in relation to our book (here, the target example), retrograde amnesia would consist of any loss of memory that happened prior to an event, such as an injury or onset of disease in Jimmie’s case. Dr. Davies’ explanation of retrograde amnesia helps to understand Jimmie’s case, where in the year 1975 he is unable to recall any events after 1945. As well, the explanation of anterograde amnesia as including symptoms such as inability to form new memories, learn information or tasks, or to recall the recent past is useful when applied to Jimmie’s experience of not being able to recall events that happened even a few minutes prior. Jimmie’s suffering from both retro and anterograde amnesia, as explained by Sacks, results from Korsakov’s syndrome – a destruction of memory caused by alcoholic

An Article Review of “Memory blindness: Altered memory reports lead to distortion in eyewitness memory” by Cochran et al. (2016)

Korsakov's syndrome is a devastating impairment of recent memory that is caused by a thiamine deficiency which can result from alcohol abuse, mal-absorption, hyperemesis or starvation. Furthermore, other causes of Korsakov's syndrome also include heavy metal poisoning, head injury and tumors. A patient suffering from Korsakov's syndrome will most likely have an extensive pathology in the bilateral hippocampus and will actively exhibit confabulation. Confabulation occurs when a patient creates pseudo-memories about what happened during a forgotten episode. Also, during confabulation the patient's recall of the events of the past seem more imaginative than logical. Fortunately, although the patient may exemplify confabulation there