Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Memory impairment
Amnesia
HP:0002354
What it means
An impairment of memory as manifested by a reduced ability to remember things such as dates and names, and increased forgetfulness.
Affected individuals tend to lose their train of thought in conversation, begin tasks but forget their intention while doing it, repeat things often during conversations, and have difficulties in tasks of daily living.
Rare diseases that can present with this95
Very common80–99%
15- ABeta amyloidosis, Iowa type
- Alopecia-epilepsy-pyorrhea-intellectual disability syndrome
- Behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia
- Delayed encephalopathy due to carbon monoxide poisoning
- Early-onset autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease
- Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome
- Manganese poisoning
- Nasu-Hakola disease
- NMDA receptor encephalitis
- Papillary tumor of the pineal region
- Pineocytoma
- PRKAR1B-related neurodegenerative dementia with intermediate filaments
- Progressive non-fluent aphasia
- Sialuria
- Sneddon syndrome
Common30–79%
25- 15q11.2microdeletion syndrome
- 17q11microdeletion syndrome
- Acquired aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage
- Autosomal dominant spastic ataxia type 1
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 11
- Brain arteriovenous malformation, nidus type
- Citrullinemia type II
- Huntington disease
- Huntington disease-like syndrome due to C9ORF72 expansions
- Idiopathic hypersomnia
- Marchiafava-Bignami disease
- MELAS
- Metachromatic leukodystrophy, adult form
- Neurofibromatosis type 1
- Non-progressive cerebellar ataxia with intellectual disability
- Obesity due to SIM1 deficiency
- Pineoblastoma
- Posttransplant acute limbic encephalitis
- Progressive supranuclear palsy
- Progressive supranuclear palsy-corticobasal syndrome
- Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1
- Spinocerebellar ataxia type 27A
- Sporadic adult-onset ataxia of unknown etiology
- Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
- X-linked spinocerebellar ataxia type 4
Sometimes5–29%
40- Aceruloplasminemia
- Acute intermittent porphyria
- Adiposis dolorosa
- Adrenomyeloneuropathy
- Autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia-deafness-narcolepsy syndrome
- Autosomal dominant Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2Y
- Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 9A
- Autosomal recessive cerebellar ataxia due to STUB1 deficiency
and 32 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Forgetfulness · Memory loss · Memory problems · Poor memory
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.