Living with global amnesia: self-established compensation strategies of a patient with severe memory impairment – a narrative report

ABSTRACT

We report the case of C.H., a 48-year-old patient with global amnesia caused by herpes simplex encephalitis at the age of 20 and subsequent extensive bilateral temporal lobe lesions. Neuropsychological examinations performed at various intervals found persistent dense explicit memory impairment and limited vocabulary, yet intact procedural memory. Despite these limitations, C.H. self-developed and acquired a variety of effective strategies. As a result, C.H. achieved a high level of autonomy in everyday life. Her remarkable case is an encouraging and helpful example for successful implementation of creative methods and procedures to compensate and alleviate cognitive limitation, even if extensive.

KEYWORDS:

• Global amnesia
• memory rehabilitation
• memory compensation
• case-report
• herpes-simplex-encephalitis

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank C.H. and her family as well as Prof. Dr. Georg Goldenberg for their cooperation. This research was supported by grants from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: DFG-SCHE 735/3-1; DFG-SCHE 735/3-2).

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation [DFG-SCHE 735/3-1; DFG-SCHE 735/3-2].