The meaning of the phrase "to delay the time to occurrence of mood episodes"

Question

I'm not exactly sure what this phrase mean: "the purpose of _ is to delay the time to occurrence of mood episodes ..."

My guess is that it means that _ increases the amount of time between episodes.

That's probably what's intended. But "the time to occurrence" is a duration, a period of time, which should be extended rather than deferred. — Andrew Leach, Sep 22, 2015 at 14:41
As a common English sentence (i.e. not from a specialised field), it is a claim to increase the time before the start of those mood episodes. That is, if the episodes would have started at time t without _, then applying _ is claimed to lead to a later start time than t. However, given the medical tag, there may be medical terminology involved that I am not familiar with. — Lawrence, Mar 21, 2016 at 10:03

Centaurus · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-22 16:29:45Z

"postpone" seems to fit.

"the purpose of _ is to postpone the occurrence of mood episodes ..."

postpone - (vb) To cause or arrange for (an event) to take place at a time later than the time at which it was originally supposed to happen.

This new drug is supposed to postpone the occurrence of anxiety attacks.

She has decided to postpone the meeting.

Our departure was postponed because of the weather.

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