Can learning a foreign language prevent dementia?
You may have heard that learning another language is one method for preventing or at least postponing the onset of dementia. Dementia refers to the loss of cognitive abilities, and one of its most common forms is Alzheimer’s disease. The best evidence that foreign language learning confers cognitive benefits comes from research with those who are already bilingual. A separate study, conducted in India, found strikingly similar results: bilingual patients developed symptoms of dementia 4.5 years later than monolinguals, even after other potential factors, such as gender and occupation, were controlled for. # # # This article is excerpted from Roberts & Kreuz’s book “Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language.” Roberts and Kreuz are the co-authors of “Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language,” “Getting Through: The Pleasures and Perils of Cross-Cultural Communication,” and the forthcoming book “Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging.”
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