Synonyms
Alcohol amnesic disorder; Alcoholic polyneuropathy; Alcoholic psychosis; Korsakoff (korsakov) psychosis; Wernicke’s encephalitis; Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy
Short Description or Definition
Korsakoff’s psychosis (KP) is an abnormal mental condition that is usually a sequela of chronic alcoholism. Generally considered a later stage of Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE), KP is associated with polyneuritis and is characterized by an impaired ability to acquire new information and by a substantial, but irregular, memory loss for which the patient often attempts to compensate through confabulation. However, KP is often distinguished from dementia associated with alcoholism due to the preservation of major intellectual ability, which is clouded in the latter syndrome.
Categorization
Korsakoff’s psychosis is usually associated with the late, irreversible stage of Wernicke’s encephalitis. WE is an acute neuropsychiatric condition resulting from an initially reversible dysfunction...
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Churn, S.B., Campbell, J. (2018). Korsakoff’s Syndrome. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_327
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_327
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