Bilingualism can prevent dementia, suggests study – 04/28/2023 – Health

Speaking two languages ​​gives you the enviable ability to make friends in unusual places. A new study suggests that bilingualism may also have another benefit: improving memory later in life.

Studying hundreds of elderly patients, researchers in Germany found that those who reported using two languages ​​daily from an early age scored higher on tests of learning, memory, language and self-control than patients who spoke only one language.

The findings, published in the April issue of the journal Neurobiology of Aging, add to two decades of work suggesting that bilingualism protects against dementia and cognitive decline in older people.

“It is promising that they report that bilingualism in early life and midlife has a beneficial effect on cognitive health later in life,” said Miguel Arce Rentería, a neuropsychologist at Columbia University who was not involved in the study. “It would line up with the existing literature.”

In recent years, scientists have gained a greater understanding of bilingualism and brain aging, although not all of their findings have lined up. Some have found that if people who are fluent in two languages ​​develop dementia, they will develop it later than people who speak only one language. But other research has shown no clear benefit of bilingualism.

Neuroscientists hypothesize that because bilingual people switch fluidly between two languages, they may deploy similar strategies in other skills — such as multitasking, managing emotions and self-control — that help delay dementia at a later stage.

The new study tested 746 people between the ages of 59 and 76. About 40% of the volunteers had no memory problems, while the others were patients in memory clinics and had confusion or memory loss.

All were tested on a variety of vocabulary, memory, attention and calculation tasks. They were asked to recall previously named objects, for example, and spell words backwards, follow three-part commands, and copy designs presented to them.

Volunteers who reported using a second language daily between ages 13 and 30 or between ages 30 and 65 scored higher on language, memory, focus, attention, and decision-making skills compared to those who were not bilingual at those ages.

Investigating bilingualism at different stages of life is a unique approach, said Boon Lead Tee, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research. With the impressively large sample size, she said, the study authors can likely generate other new results, such as whether the age at which a person acquired each language affected their cognition later in life.

She cautioned, however, that the study focused on just one aspect of bilingualism: using two languages ​​every day for extended periods of time. Positive effects on cognition could be caused by another factor, such as the age at which the two languages ​​were encoded in memory, or specific demographics or life experiences of people who are bilingual.

Other experts agreed that the results might have been different if the researchers had asked the volunteers if they spoke a second language once a week, or even less often, instead of every day.

“I don’t think there’s a definition that everyone agrees on, and I don’t think there ever will be, because being bilingual is a full spectrum,” said Dr. Esti Blanco-Elorrieta, a language researcher at Harvard University.

It’s also crucial for future research to look at the broader benefits of bilingualism, said Blanco-Elorrieta, who speaks Basque, English, German and Spanish.

“The advantage of being bilingual isn’t really in those milliseconds of head start you can have on a cognitive task,” she said. “I think the importance of being bilingual is being able to communicate with two cultures and two ways of seeing the world.”