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Impairment of both languages in late bilinguals with dementia of the Alzheimer type*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2014

MÉLANIE MANCHON ,
KARIN BUETLER ,
FRANÇOISE COLOMBO ,
LUCAS SPIERER ,
FRÉDÉRIC ASSAL  and
JEAN-MARIE ANNONI
MÉLANIE MANCHON*
Affiliation:
Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
KARIN BUETLER
Affiliation:
Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
FRANÇOISE COLOMBO
Affiliation:
Neuropsychology Unit, Hôpitaux Fribourgeois, Fribourg, Switzerland
LUCAS SPIERER
Affiliation:
Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
FRÉDÉRIC ASSAL
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Geneva University and Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland
JEAN-MARIE ANNONI
Affiliation:
Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
*
Address for correspondence: Mélanie Manchon, Laboratory for Cognitive and Neurological Sciences, Chemin du Musée, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerlandmelanie.manchon@gmail.com
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Abstract

Neuropsychological theories raise the question if in late bilinguals with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), the second language (L2) may be more impaired than the first (L1). We compared language performance in different tasks of oral comprehension (semantic and syntactic) and production (naming, repetition and fluency) in L1 and L2 in a group of 13 late proficient bilinguals wit DAT immersion, and a matched control group of 12 healthy late bilinguals. Two-way mixed repeated-measure ANOVAs with factors Language and Group revealed main effects of Group (p < .05) indicating that DAT affects all aspects of language. There was no Group × Language interaction, suggesting that DAT affects both languages similarly. Our study thus shows that neurodegenerative diseases affect L1 and L2 in a parallel manner, particularly at the levels of semantic, lexical and syntactic processing. These results speak in favour of a shared L1 and L2 network in late bilinguals.

Keywords

Alzheimerlate bilingualslanguage breakdown

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 90 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported by grant #325130_138497 from the Swiss National Science Foundation to J.-M. Annoni. We thank Sylvie Blatter and Mme Risse (Famille au Jardin Foundation) for their help in collecting and analyzing the data. We also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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