Bilingualism and Alzheimer's Disease
Bilingualism may be one of the best skills a person could acquire. It is clear bilinguals benefit from this skill and it affects all aspects of life, and it can even help a person cope with Alzheimer’s Disease. But what are the benefits of bilingualism and what is Alzheimer’s Disease?
Recently, much has been heard of bilingualism and multilingualism, but how come? Is it worth it learning another language at all? It is clear history thought bilingualism was similar to the plague for our brain. Common thought on bilingualism was It “confused” children and interfered with their learning and success in school, bilinguals are just making life harder for themselves, it’s not worth it for schools to go out of their way to hire foreign language teachers. History is wrong. Gray Matter, author of “Bilinguals Are Smarter”, explained authorities and psychologists thought an extra language to be an obstacle (it slowed down children’s growth academically). Well, it is an extra loop the brain has to go through, because even if one language is being used the two language systems are active simultaneously. Thank you to the obstacle the brain is prompted to break up this inner battle of the language systems, thus strength exercising the brain and its muscles (Matter). Bilingualism is able to benefit the ones that acquire the skill in this way and more! The brain’s executive function benefits from bilingualism also. The executive function is the head quarters that dominates planning, attention, solving problems and other cognitive responsibilities (Matter). This benefit especially helps with dealing with distractions, having the ability to switch focus from one subject to the other at will, and storing information like a recipe, driving directions, etc (Matter). Another benefit of bilingualism is bilinguals have to develop to linguistically adapt to their environment and situation (Matter). Their brain has to take in the information the ears, the eyes, and the rest body is giving it to determine which language to use. Is is much like a child talking to his mother in one language and talking to his father in another language (Matter). There was a study on this benefit. The results indicated that bilinguals processes information and performed tasks more efficient than monolinguals (Matter). So, bilingualism seems as if it is worth all the activity and research that has been done to it. It shows it is extremely beneficial to the mind of people and helps for a better quality life.
For Bilingual Alzheimer’s patients, researchers, such as those at York University who have recently conducted tests on approximately 450 Alzheimer’s patients, have come to the conclusion that the Alzheimer’s expected effects are stunted for bilingual patients. Regarding the 450 subjects studied by York University researchers, psychologist Ellen Bialystok had this to say, “What’ve we’ve been able to show is that in these patients… all of whom have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and are all at the same level of impairment, the bilinguals on average are four to five years older—which means that they’ve been able to cope with disease.” To fully comprehend the scope of her findings, the total number of bilingual patients she is referring to in the study of roughly 450 is equivalent to 225 patients with the described impairment levels. Interestingly, CT brain scans of the aforementioned patients revealed how advanced the disease truly was for the bilingual patients even though their behavior was similar to that of monolingual patients in their beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. In other words, as Bialystok simply explains,”Once disease begins to compromise this region of the brain, bilinguals can continue to function… Bilingualism is protecting older adults, even after Alzheimer’s disease is beginning to affect cognitive function.” Therefore, from the perspective of these researchers, bilingualism not only has a direct relation with Alzheimer’s, but it may also be a valid means of dealing with the disease to curb its symptoms drastically.
Now knowing the benefits of bilingualism and what Alzheimer’s Disease is, can bilingualism help those with Alzheimer’s? Firstly, “Being bilingual doesn’t prevent Alzheimer’s but bilingual patients do better than monolingual patients” (Moskowitz). It has also been shown diseased bilinguals have stronger brains and have more resilience to the disease (Alzheimer's Society). They also have more brain plasticity (Woumans).