Confabulations on Time: Relationship between Confabulations and Timing Deviations in Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Objectives: We investigated the relationship between confabulations and the ability to process chronological characteristics of memories in Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

Methods: We evaluated provoked confabulations, spontaneous confabulations, and time perception in 31 AD patients. We evaluated provoked confabulations with questions probing general and personal knowledge. We evaluated spontaneous confabulations with a scale rated by nursing and medical staff. Regarding time perception, we invited the participants to perform a simple ongoing activity (i.e., deciding whether words were abstract or concrete), in order to provide a verbal estimation of the elapsed time intervals.

Results: We observed significant positive correlations between provoked/spontaneous confabulations and deviations in time estimation on the time perception task.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate a relationship between confabulations in AD and difficulties in processing the chronological characteristics of elapsed events.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Confabulations; Time distortions; Time perception.