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Abstract

Recent findings indicate that bilingualism delay the onset of dementia. Using data from the Betula longitudinal cohort study on memory, health and aging (www.betula.su.se) the issue of a possible protective effect of bilingualism was addressed.

Monolingual ( = 736) and bilingual ( = 82) participants (≥ 60 years) without dementia at inclusion were followed for incident dementia over a time-period up to 10 years. In total, 112 participants developed dementia. Analyses were performed with Cox proportional hazards regression adjusted for age, sex, and presence/absence of the Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ɛ4 allele, with dementia outcome as the dependent variable.

Results showed no delayed onset of dementia in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. However, because of the findings from a study using participants from the same population showing beneficial longitudinal effects of bilingualism on episodic memory; we argue that our results may depend on the frequency of use of the second language after retirement.

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2016-02-12
2024-10-14

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The effect of language skills on dementia in a Swedish longitudinal cohort
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6, 190 (2016); https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.14031.lju
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Keyword(s): Aging; Bilingualism; Cognitive reserve; Dementia; Longitudinal design

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