ArticleAlzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association2024
Protective effect of bilingualism on aging, MCI, and dementia: A community-based study.
Article in Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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17 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Correlation between peripheral and central inflammatory and neuronal injury markers in mild cognitive impairment patients: the role of blood-brain barrier status.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Bilingualism's protective effects in Alzheimer's disease: Mechanisms of resilience and resistance.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Deconstructing bilingualism and its sociocultural determinants in cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Scientific knowledge about dementia: From the Global South to the world.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Sociodemographic correlates of cognition and Alzheimer's disease and vascular biomarkers among middle to older age participants in the Healthy Brain Initiative.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2025Article
- The role of bilingualism on functional decline and neurodegeneration in distinct ADRD clinical syndromes.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2025Article
- Want a younger brain? Learn another language.Nature · 2025Article
- Addressing language challenges in bilingual neuropsychological assessments at the South Texas Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC).Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2025Article
- Language disorders in understudied languages: Opening editorial.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2025Article
- Article
- The association between multilingualism and cognitive function among literate and illiterate older adults with low education in India.Alzheimer's & dementia. Behavior & socioeconomics of aging · 2025Article
- Learning a Foreign Language in Older Adults Shapes the Functional Connectivity of Distinct Cerebellar Sub-Regions With Cortical Areas Rich in CBBrain and behavior · 2025Article
- Protective effect of bilingualism on aging, MCI, and dementia: A community-based study.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024Article
- Association of majority versus minority first language multilingualism and socioeconomic status with cognition among older adults residing in India.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
- Attitudes Towards Bilingualism: Insights From Parents of Children With Down Syndrome.International journal of language & communication disordersArticle
- Multilingual characteristics and cognition among older adults in India.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
- Bilingualism was not associated with a cognitive advantage among older Mexican adults.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
introductionLifelong bilingualism is associated with a delayed age at onset of dementia, but evidence from community-based studies is limited. We investigated the relationship between bilingualism and the prevalence of cognitive impairment in a linguistically diverse community.
methodsA door-to-door community study was conducted from January to December 2021 in urban Bengaluru, India. 1234 individuals aged ≥60 years participated in the study. Participants were diagnosed with no cognitive impairment (NCI), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or dementia using established diagnostic criteria.
resultsDementia prevalence was higher in monolinguals (4.9%) than bilinguals (0.4%) (P = .001). The prevalence of MCI was also higher in monolinguals (8.5%) than bilinguals (5.3%) (P = .001). The study also revealed better cognitive function in bilinguals than monolinguals with NCI, after controlling for confounding variables. DISCUSSION: The current study provides significant support for the protective effect of bilingualism on cognitive impairment in an urban community with extensive bilingual interactional contexts in everyday life. HIGHLIGHTS: Bilingualism has been demonstrated to protect against dementia and mild cognitive impairment in a linguistically diverse community with extensive code-switching contexts. Bilingual older individuals had superior baseline cognitive performance compared to monolingual older individuals. Bilingualism was found to have an independent effect on general cognition after adjusting for major social determinants of health in the group without cognitive impairment.
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