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Stroke is one of the main causes of disability in the world, and great efforts are directed towards its early diagnosis. One of the factors that increase the chances of recovery is the knowledge of at least one foreign language.
The advantages of knowing foreign languages in everyday life are obvious to everyone. This is an opportunity to travel freely, expand one’s horizons by communicating with representatives of other cultures, find a better-paid job – in a word, all the pluses can not be counted. However, apparently, knowledge of foreign languages is also critical for people who are on the verge of life and death after a stroke. This is evidenced by a large-scale study conducted jointly by specialists from the Indian Institute of Medical Research Nizam and the University of Edinburgh (UK).
Psychologists and doctors studied the medical records of more than 600 stroke patients in the city of Hyderabad. This Indian city is known for the fact that representatives of many peoples and nationalities live here, and therefore the knowledge of several languages for local residents is a very common phenomenon.
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Scientists have established1 hard fact: patients who speak at least two languages have twice the chance of a full recovery than those who speak only one. During the study, many tests were conducted to assess memory functions, the ability to focus, navigate in space and other cognitive abilities. Of course, the researchers did not forget about the individual characteristics of each individual patient. The presence of bad habits (smoking), high blood pressure, diabetes, and, finally, the age of stroke survivors were taken into account. However, the final result has not changed at all. With all the adjustments, and all other things being equal, it was found that only 20% of patients who speak only one language were able to fully restore their cognitive functions to a normal level after a stroke. Among patients who speak two or more languages, this figure was 40%
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The authors of the work admit that they cannot yet accurately describe the mechanism that contributes to a more complete recovery of the cognitive functions of the brain after a stroke in people who speak several languages. However, they intend to continue their research. And one of the lead co-authors of the article, Thomas Bak, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, shares his thoughts on this. “The phenomenon of multilingualism is the ability to constantly switch between languages,” he says. – And “pause” one language, “activating” the other as needed. These switches can be seen as constant intense brain training. And they are quite capable of serving as an important factor in recovery after a stroke.
This is not the first time that Thomas Buck and his colleagues have addressed the specifics of the brain activity of bilinguals and people who speak several languages. Previously, scientists have already established that the age-related loss of cognitive functions and the development of dementia occur in bilinguals on average 5 years later than those who speak only one language. And although these data also need additional study and confirmation, the benefits of knowing foreign languages seem to be becoming more and more obvious. Now for the health benefits.
1 S. Alladi, Th. H. Bak et al. “Impact of Bilingualism on Cognitive Outcome After Stroke”. The article is being prepared for publication in Stroke magazine in 2016.