Sprachstörungen bei Alzheimer-Demenz. Die schützende Funktion der Mehrsprachigkeit vor altersbedingten Demenzerkrankungen

Cosentino Gianluca

2022-01-01

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Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a currently incurable, neurodegenerative illness with a slow progress and prolonged development that leads to serious cognitive impairment. Language changes also take place in the early stages of this type of dementia. On the lexical level, word-finding deficits, including a reduction in vocabulary and an atypical use of parts of speech, can be observed. On the syntactic level, sentence breaks and problems with complex sentence structures occur more frequently, yet the production of shorter sentences also seems to be considerably more challenging. On the pragmatic level, the ability to formulate appropriate context-related utterances is compromised. Scientists and experts assume that lifelong multilingualism and the active mastery of more than one language can increase brain plasticity and contribute significantly to building a so-called ‘cognitive reserve’, which helps delay mental decline as a result of AD. Starting from this evidence, the paper will focus on the relationship between AD and multilingualism and outline the most significant changes and differences in the language skills of monolingual and multilingual patients suffering from AD. The analysis aims to identify linguistic indicators of pathological aging for both patient groups (monolingual vs. multilingual).