special subjects
Korsakoff Psychosis
Symptoms of Korsakoff Psychosis
People with Korsakoff psychosis lose their memory for recent events. Memory of remote events is less affected. Memory can be so poor that people often make up stories, sometimes very convincingly, to try to cover up the inability to remember (called confabulation). They lose all sense of time. People become confused and apathetic and may not respond to events, even frightening ones. People also have all the symptoms of Wernicke encephalopathy, including profound ataxia (wide-based stumbling gait) and difficulty controlling eye movements. 