Bilingual Factors Associated with Cognitive Reserve and Linguistic Resilience in Hispanics with Primary Progressive Aphasia
Recent studies demonstrate that being bilingual can delay the onset of dementia by an average of 4-5 years. Stephanie Grasso (University of Texas at Austin) & Miguel Ángel Santos-Santos (Memory Unit at Hospital Sant Pau) received a R01 grant (clinical trial) from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA) to establish associations between bilingualism factors and the onset, decline, and treatment response of Hispanic bilinguals (Castilian Spanish – Catalan) with primary progressive aphasia.
Outcomes will also provide crucial knowledge regarding neural mechanisms of language re-learning and will address how the bilingual experience influences cognitive reserve and linguistic resilience in language-prominent dementia. Hospital Sant Pau will receive $1 million over the next five years. The grant total is $3.4 million.