A 58-year-old man suffered from an almost complete loss of memory when he woke up one morning and was later diagnosed with the rare condition known as transient global amnesia, a Taipei neurologist said yesterday
The man, surnamed Lin (林), is an executive at a foreign company. He shocked his family that morning, because he could not remember what he had just talked about a couple of minutes earlier, and repeatedly asked questions such as: “Where am I going today?” “What do I do?” and “What day is it today?”
Huang Chih-hsun (黃啟訓), a neurologist at the Shu Tien Clinic, said that a cerebrovascular ultrasound examination showed that Lin had transient global amnesia — a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss — caused by internal jugular vein valve incompetence.
He said that Lin had been emotional after watching a political talk show on TV and later had trouble defecating because of chronic constipation.
The intense emotions and the constipation might have caused the blood to flow backward or triggered venous hyperemia, Huang said.
“Memory formation is mainly controlled by the hippocampus in the brain. Because he suffered from internal jugular vein valvular incompetence, which caused ischemia in the hippocampus, he temporarily lost his memory,” Huang said.
He said valvular insufficiency usually occurs as a result of aging, but some people have a congenital vascular anomaly and the condition can trigger transient global amnesia, multiple sclerosis and cerebral vascular incidents.
People should consider having a cerebrovascular ultrasound examination and a test for internal jugular venous reflux when getting a health examination if they have suffered from temporary memory loss or a temporary feeling of suffocation, Huang said.
“People with such a condition [internal jugular vein valve incompetence] should avoid getting too angry or too excited, doing strenuous exercise or straining too much when suffering from constipation,” he said.
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