People diagnosed with dementia often have a distorted sense of time passing. My friends who are clinicians often comment on their patients with dementia preparing and arriving for their appointments many hours before they’re scheduled.
Dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease progressively impair cognition, causing problems with memory and planning, and day-to-day functioning, making it difficult to do things like shopping and cleaning.
Accurate time perception is critical in our modern society (and for much more important reasons than waiting room congestion) so this disorientation significantly affects those with dementia and their families and carers.
The Australian population is ageing, and with this comes an increased prevalence of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease being the most common. One in ten over-65s and one in three over-85s have dementia.
There are neurological reasons why those affected by dementia judge the passage of time differently, and can access remote memories from many decades ago while unable to remember events of the past few hours.
Time Perception in Dementia
Those with dementia judge the passage of time quicker than older adults without dementia, as well as younger adults. This is for prospective time perception, where people are instructed to estimate an upcoming time interval; and retrospective time estimation, where people judge time after the event has occurred, requiring them to mentally travel back in time.
