19 Nov Bilingual Patients More Likely To Recover From Stroke
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Thomas Bak
Centre for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology and Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh and
Dr. Suvarna Alladi
Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, India
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In a previous study published in 2013 (attached) we have reported that bilingual patients develop dementia around 4 years later than monolingual ones – a phenomenon, which we tried to explain in a commentary in 2014 (also attached); the mechanism we have postulated as a possible explanation is so called “cognitive reserve”: the ability of the brain, boosted by a range of different mental activities, to cope better with potential damage. One manifestation of it has been now described in several studies: bilingual patients seem to develop dementia later than monolingual ones. But if the cognitive reserve helps in coping with brain damage, it should also help with the recovery after stroke. This was exactly what we set out to examine and exactly what we found. Bilingual patients showed a complete recovery of cognitive functions after stroke over twice as often as monolingual ones (40/5% vs. 19.6%).
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Response: The main message is a positive one: we know already that we can diminish the risk of stroke by controlling risk factors such as diabetes or hypertension. What we have shown now is that we can also improve our chances of recovering from it through mental activity – and learning and speaking more than one language could be a good example of mental activity, which can contribute to this “cognitive reserve”. This shows that people who know a second language, whether they learnt it through school, travelling as a Cultural Care Au Pair, if their family all speak two languages, or they don’t live in their home country; they are more likely to recover faster if they do suffer a stroke than those who only know one.
Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: Bilingualism is a very broad concept; it would be useful to know, among others, whether it is enough to know the languages or whether one needs to practice them regularly, whether it is better to keep them apart or to “switch” between them in daily conversations, whether it brings additional benefits to be able to write them (rather than just speaking them) and many other questions…
Citation:
Impact of Bilingualism on Cognitive Outcome After Stroke
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Dr. Thomas Bak, & Dr. Suvarna Alladi (2015). Bilingual Patients More Likely To Recover From Stroke
Last Updated on November 25, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD