OBJECTIVE: Perform a systematic review of articles that used the bisection time method to assess the perception of time in patients with Alzheimer's disease by means of the bisection-of-time method, and to analyze its parameters. METHOD: Searches were conducted from March to May, 2011, in the following databases: Web of Science, Science Direct On Line, Biological Abstracts, Medline and PsychoInfo. Keywords and boolean operators were: "interval timing" or "perception of time" or "time discrimination" or "reproduction of time" and "Alzheimer's disease". Additionally, a manual search was conducted in the references of the selected articles. RESULTS: Four studies fulfilled all inclusion criteria, and large variations in the parameters of the method were found. CONCLUSION: Patients with Alzheimer's disease show difficulty in performing the task of bisection of time, which can be explained by the gradual decline on the abilities required in the perception of time test. There are large variations regarding the time intervals applied in the method. In such context, controlled-and-randomized future studies are required, in order to investigate the potential effects of time-intervals variations in the bisection-of-time method. The results of such studies would contribute to establish most suitable and reliable parameters.
Temporal scales; Alzheimer's disease; perception of time; time interval
