A dementia diagnosis often sounds a death knell for those on the receiving end. It is well known that there is no cure and that the proceeding years will lead to ever decreasing levels of cognitive ability. While the medical profession is constantly exploring new avenues in hopes of a cure, for now the solution still eludes us. However, in their pursuit they have uncovered some very interesting mitigating factors that show very real promise of prolonging a patient’s ability to retain cognitive function for longer than average.
One of the primary indicators of dementia is a decrease in a person’s ability to communicate; in fact in some forms of dementia this is often the first sign1. They may struggle to find words, use a substitute word in the wrong context or even jumble words completely. Large portions of the brain contribute to a person’s ability to use a language to communicate effectively so it makes sense that this could be one of the first areas that is affected. But we also know that people who have spent their lives educating themselves, learning and increasing their understanding have shown much higher resiliency to the effects of dementia. This is due to their brains building up “cognitive reserves” that are able to slow down the effects of the degeneration2. Having a brain that has constantly worked at building new neural pathways means when dementia rears its head, your brain is able to circumnavigate it, slowing down its progress and giving the patient many more years to enjoy before its effects become truly detrimental. One of the best ways, it seems, to give your brain an edge over dementia is being bilingual.
According to a study done in 2019, learning a second language stimulates an abundance of growth in the brain; the sheer amount of information that is required in being able to effectively communicate in a language other than your first is boggling3. Learning a language means your brain is constantly forming new pathways to understand syntax, tonal shift, sentence structure and grammar. Your brain literally begins to reshape due to amount of stimulation it is receiving in a phenomenon called “neuroplasticity.” Being bilingual also means multiple areas of your brain need to be incredibly well connected in order to cooperate effectively when communicating in either one language or another without getting confused. Neural pathways are reinforced and white matter is shown to maintain its integrity well into the twilight years of a person’s life. An initial estimate shows that being bilingual can on average extend the period of a patient being asymptomatic by as much as four and a half years4.
While this doesn’t get us closer to a possible cure for those affected by the disease, it does at the very least give us some hope. Knowing more about how the brain works and how our life experiences change its makeup can inform us on how to work towards reducing the weight and impact the disease has on us. We don’t have to be consigned to five to ten years of rapid degradation from the moment of diagnosis. We can live full lives, sometimes without even knowing dementia is present. So if you’ve got some free time on your hands, why not start learning that language you’ve always been interested in? It may just save your life.
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