{"title":"Transient Global Amnesia Triggered by Cold Water Swimming: A Series of 9 Cases Presenting to a Hospital on the Coast of Ireland Within 5 Years.","authors":"Colm Tuohy, Ginna Alexandra Polania Zuleta","doi":"10.12890/2025_005200","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Transient global amnesia is a clinical syndrome characterized by sudden onset of anterograde amnesia, often accompanied by repetitive questioning, lasting up to 24 hours with complete resolution and no other neurological deficits. This case series presents 9 patients who experienced transient global amnesia following sea swimming between 2019 and 2024 at Bantry General Hospital, a hospital located in a coastal town on the south of Ireland.</p><p><strong>Case presentations: </strong>Patients who presented with \"amnesia\" or \"transient global amnesia\" were identified through searching the hospital database. Patients whose symptoms were directly related to sea swimming were included in this report. All 9 patients were women, with ages ranging from 55 to 82 years. Symptoms typically developed during or immediately after swimming, with durations ranging from 1 to 7 hours. Common symptoms included confusion, short-term memory loss, repetitive questioning and disorientation to time and/or place. Water temperatures ranged from 9.2°C to 18°C. Neuroimaging, including computed tomography scans of the brain for all patients and magnetic resonance imaging for 3 patients, showed no acute changes. All patients experienced full symptom resolution within 24 hours.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This case series highlights the link between cold water immersion during sea swimming and transient global amnesia. The consistent association with sea swimming aligns with previous reports identifying cold water immersion as a trigger for transient global amnesia. These findings warrant further investigation into the relationship between sea swimming and transient global amnesia. Clinicians should be aware of this potential trigger when evaluating patients with acute onset amnesia, especially in coastal areas.</p><p><strong>Learning points: </strong>This case series highlights the link between sea swimming and the occurrence of transient global amnesia.With the increasing popularity of sea swimming around Europe, clinicians should be aware of this phenomenon.Further research is necessary to understand the underlying mechanism behind this phenomenon.</p>","PeriodicalId":11908,"journal":{"name":"European journal of case reports in internal medicine","volume":"12 4","pages":"005200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12013247/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European journal of case reports in internal medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.12890/2025_005200","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Medicine","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Transient global amnesia is a clinical syndrome characterized by sudden onset of anterograde amnesia, often accompanied by repetitive questioning, lasting up to 24 hours with complete resolution and no other neurological deficits. This case series presents 9 patients who experienced transient global amnesia following sea swimming between 2019 and 2024 at Bantry General Hospital, a hospital located in a coastal town on the south of Ireland.
Case presentations: Patients who presented with "amnesia" or "transient global amnesia" were identified through searching the hospital database. Patients whose symptoms were directly related to sea swimming were included in this report. All 9 patients were women, with ages ranging from 55 to 82 years. Symptoms typically developed during or immediately after swimming, with durations ranging from 1 to 7 hours. Common symptoms included confusion, short-term memory loss, repetitive questioning and disorientation to time and/or place. Water temperatures ranged from 9.2°C to 18°C. Neuroimaging, including computed tomography scans of the brain for all patients and magnetic resonance imaging for 3 patients, showed no acute changes. All patients experienced full symptom resolution within 24 hours.
Conclusions: This case series highlights the link between cold water immersion during sea swimming and transient global amnesia. The consistent association with sea swimming aligns with previous reports identifying cold water immersion as a trigger for transient global amnesia. These findings warrant further investigation into the relationship between sea swimming and transient global amnesia. Clinicians should be aware of this potential trigger when evaluating patients with acute onset amnesia, especially in coastal areas.
Learning points: This case series highlights the link between sea swimming and the occurrence of transient global amnesia.With the increasing popularity of sea swimming around Europe, clinicians should be aware of this phenomenon.Further research is necessary to understand the underlying mechanism behind this phenomenon.
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine is an official journal of the European Federation of Internal Medicine (EFIM), representing 35 national societies from 33 European countries. The Journal''s mission is to promote the best medical practice and innovation in the field of acute and general medicine. It also provides a forum for internal medicine doctors where they can share new approaches with the aim of improving diagnostic and clinical skills in this field. EJCRIM welcomes high-quality case reports describing unusual or complex cases that an internist may encounter in everyday practice. The cases should either demonstrate the appropriateness of a diagnostic/therapeutic approach, describe a new procedure or maneuver, or show unusual manifestations of a disease or unexpected reactions. The Journal only accepts and publishes those case reports whose learning points provide new insight and/or contribute to advancing medical knowledge both in terms of diagnostics and therapeutic approaches. Case reports of medical errors, therefore, are also welcome as long as they provide innovative measures on how to prevent them in the current practice (Instructive Errors). The Journal may also consider brief and reasoned reports on issues relevant to the practice of Internal Medicine, as well as Abstracts submitted to the scientific meetings of acknowledged medical societies.