Languages are an integral part of the charm and diversity of civilizations. And sometimes these cultural differences are illustrated even in the medical field. For example, people with dementia do not have the same symptoms if they have English or Italian as their mother tongue.
These are the conclusions of a study published in Neurology and carried out by scientists from the University of California at San Francisco (United States), on 20 English-speaking patients and 18 Italian-speaking patients. All had progressive primary aphasia, a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by difficulty producing or pronouncing words and often associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Cognitive tests and brain MRI scans performed on patients revealed similar cognitive functions and comparable levels of brain degeneration in the two groups. But the researchers found an essential difference when they compared the performance of patients from a battery of language tests.
Different disorders depending on the language spoken
Anglophones, for example, had more difficulty pronouncing words and tended to speak less than usual. Italians, on the other hand, encountered fewer pronunciation difficulties but tended to produce much shorter and grammatically simpler sentences.
“English, which has many consonant clusters, can be difficult to pronounce for dementia patients, while Italian is easier to pronounce, but has a much more complex grammar,” says Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini , professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of California who led the study.
The results of this study are important for arriving at more accurate diagnoses in patients with aphasia in different cultures: “It is essential that studies take into account linguistic and cultural differences in the study of brain disorders that affect higher cognitive functions, which we know are greatly influenced by culture, environment and experience, “said Dr. Gorno-Tempini.
More inclusive care
However, there are several limitations to the research, including the small sample size of the patients studied, as well as possible confounders such as differences in education.
Future studies in partnership with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) will attempt to replicate the results in larger patient groups and to look for other differences between speakers of non-Western languages such as Chinese and Arabic.
“We hope that such studies will advance our understanding of the brain science behind language and language disorders, raise awareness of health disparities in the world. dementia treatment and, ultimately, will improve care for all patients, “said Dr. Gorno-Tempini.
Interested in this topic ? Come and discuss it on our forum!
–
–
