How speaking more than one language can delay dementia symptoms – it helps build cognitive reserve, which protects your brain
- Switching between languages, or controlling and suppressing the language that is not in use, helps to promote cognitive agility, researcher says
- Bilingualism improves the brain’s ability to reorganise itself – which could make it more resilient to changes brought on by ageing and disease
This is the 29th instalment in a series on dementia, including the research into its causes and treatment, advice for carers, and stories of hope.
How many languages do you speak? Just your mother tongue? Two? Three? I speak one and a second badly. I am trying – and failing – to get to grips with French with the popular Duolingo programme.
My failing is reflected in the dying Duolingo owl, which has faded from vibrant green on my screen to a skeletal bone with hollow eyes. I’m not doing very well.
I should keep trying, according to a recent study conducted by Mario Mendez, a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the United States, and published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease.
Speaking more than one language may delay the onset of dementia symptoms by as much as five years, it suggests.
That is true even if there is evidence of the pathology of the disease – including amyloid plaques and tau tangles.
