Neglect in temporal domain: Amelioration following a prismatic adaptation treatment and implications in everyday life. A single case study

Abstract

As in line bisection, in time bisection, neglect patients fail to process the first/left part of time representation (Mental-Time-Line-MTL) resulting in a rightward shift of the interval midpoint. A leftward shift of spatial attention after one session of prismatic-adaptation (PA) reduces this deficit. The impact on daily life of time deficit is little investigated in neglect. Here we study the time deficit and its ecological impact in an outpatient with neglect (LL) and the effects of a PA-treatment (ten sessions) on the deficit and its impact. Before and after PA-treatment, LL completed a: time-bisection-task assessing the MTL in the milliseconds-seconds range; lifespan-task assessing the MTL in the lifespan range; qualitative interview assessing the impact on daily routines. Patient's performance on the tasks was compared with the performance of non-neurological controls. Before PA-treatment, LL showed a rightward shift in the time-bisection-task and a compression of life events distribution in the lifespan-task. The feeling "to be forward in time" emerged in the interview. The PA-treatment reduced the deficits in the tasks and the feeling "to be forward in time" in the interview. PA-treatment is suggested as a powerful instrument for the reduction of time deficit and its ecological impact in neglect patients.

Keywords: Ecological impact; Neglect patients; Prismatic adaptation; Time representation.