Abstract:

The bilingual experience may enhance cognitive reserves by allowing individuals to resist the cognitive decline associated with the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Preliminary evidence from prospective and retrospective studies has shown that the bilingual experience may delay the age of onset and the age of diagnosis, but may not decrease the incidence rate, which can be explained by neuropsychological research. A scrutiny of research designs in previous studies suggests that the inconsistency in the results is likely due to the complicated language background of bilinguals and the diverse ways of quantifying bilingualism. Future studies require a more detailed analysis of older adults’ language backgrounds. In addition, the bi-dialectal experience is a widespread linguistic phenomenon in China, and may also protect against Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegeneration diseases; thus, it merits more systematic research on the part of Chinese researchers.

Keywords: bilingualism; Alzheimer’s disease; language backgrounds; bi-dialectalism

摘要：

双语是一种复杂的认知活动，人们普遍认为其有助于提高认知能力，可以帮助老年人更好地应对阿尔茨海默病的威胁。本研究首先梳理了现有的前瞻性与回顾性临床研究，发现双语经验能够显著延缓阿尔茨海默病的发病年龄与确诊年龄，但较难降低发病率，该现象可从神经科学的角度得到解释。此外，针对双语效应研究存在结果不一致的情况，本研究认为，双语者复杂的语言背景以及由此产生的量化问题可能是影响双语效应的关键因素，未来在研究中需要对老年人的语言背景进行更细致的测量。另外，双言在我国是一种广泛存在的语言现象，老年人的双言经验在预防阿尔茨海默病和其他神经退行性疾病方面也可能发挥作用，值得中国研究者进行系统的研究。

关键词: 双语经验, 阿尔茨海默病, 语言背景, 双言经验