Avanthi Paplikar|Shailaja Mekala|Thomas H. Bak|Santosh Dharamkar|Suvarna Alladi|Subhash Kaul
Bilingualism and the severity of poststroke aphasia
National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences|Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences|University of Edinburgh|National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences|Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences|Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences
background bilingualism associated cognitive benefits healthy people well patients cognitive impairment due stroke dementia however relationship bilingualism aphasia complex bilinguals likely monolinguals develop aphasia stroke studies relationship bilingualism severity poststroke language recovery produced conflicting results much evidence derived immigrant populations small case seriesaims background limited number studies set explore relationship bilingualism severity language impairment stroke aphasia explored hypothesis enhanced cognitive abilities related bilingualism may positive impact recovery aphasiamethods procedures investigated 38 bilingual 27 monolingual patients participated longitudinal hospitalbased stroke registry evaluated least 3 months stroke mean 115 months patient performance language cognitive functions evaluated addenbrookes cognitive examination revised acer validated use aphasia local languages varying educational levels results monolinguals bilinguals compared accounting confounding variables including age gender education occupation medical stroke characteristicsoutcomes results aphasia severity measured language domain subscores total language fluency scores acer significantly higher monolinguals compared bilinguals 70 vs 144 maximum score 40 p 0008 effect size 0691 bilinguals performed significantly better monolingual counterparts attention memory visuospatial domains acer univariate general linear model analysis showed bilingualism significantly associated higher language domain scores acer adjusting confounding variablesconclusions results suggest although bilingual speakers equal risk developing aphasia stroke monolingual ones aphasia likely less severe