Korsakov's syndrome, or amnesic syndrome, is manifested by impaired short-term memory, due to which the patient loses the sense of time. Intellectual abilities are not reduced. The cause of the disorder is considered to be damage to the posterior lobe of the hypothalamus and its surrounding structures, sometimes there may be bilateral damage to the hippocampus.
For the first time this syndrome was considered by the Russian psychiatrist S. S. Korsakov. In the late nineteenth century, the term "Korsakoff's syndrome" was used to describe a range of disorders that had the same symptoms. Currently, this term describes a violation of memory, learning ability, and these two symptoms should be significantly more pronounced than other manifestations of the disease.
The term "Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome" is also common. In 1881, Wernicke described an acute neurological syndrome that can result in problems with short-term memory. This syndromemanifested by acute disturbances of consciousness, loss of memory, orientation and other symptoms. These disorders are of an organic nature: in the brain of such patients, foci of bleeding are formed in the region of the third and fourth cerebral ventricles. Both syndromes are now known to have the same damage to the gray matter of the brain.
As already mentioned, the main manifestation of Korsakov's syndrome is a violation of short-term memory. Usually patients manage to remember those events that happened a few seconds ago, but after a few minutes or more, everything that happened to them is forgotten. Number memory tests show that the patient can show good results only for a few seconds, after ten minutes you can observe memory impairment. Not always such violations may depend on the inability of the patient to memorize. Usually problems arise with the reproduction of the information received, the patient feels some kind of interference that prevents him from remembering normally what he is asked about. Korsakov's syndrome, due to the memory impairment described above, leads to disorientation in time.
Memory lapses that accompany Korsakov's syndrome are often manifested by the fact that the patient, trying to remember the events that happened to him, describes what actually never happened. He simply cannot distinguish which facts actually took place and which are a figment of his imagination. Such patientsusually you can easily suggest anything, if the doctor only slightly hints to the patient about non-existent events, then he is able to easily give a detailed description of this event or fact that allegedly took place.
In severe memory impairment, the rest of the patient's mental abilities are preserved at the same level. Often such people can keep up a good conversation with a doctor, solve everyday problems. However, there are disturbances in the emotional sphere (dullness). Patients also experience problems performing actions that require them to exert their will.
