The Effect of Alzheimer Disease on Late Bilingual People

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain's nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes. Short-term memory fails when Alzheimer's disease first destroys nerve cells in the hippocampus, and language skills and judgment decline when neurons die in the cerebral cortex. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, or loss of intellectual function, among people aged 65 and older. This research studyhas investigated the language deterioration of late bilingual people, who are suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. (Late) Subsequent bilingual, are those who in later years and by education, have learned second language. This can be due to immigration, education, intermarriage, contact with other linguistic groups within a country, and so on. In order to collect the required data, twenty-five late bilinguals both female & male, who are diagnosed with AD participated in this study. This experimental descriptive survey was conducted based on a test including 15 items that was based on Picture Naming (PN).Then, the patients’ answers were scored according to the tests’ keys was used to analyze the research data and paired sample T-Test was run to answer questions. The results showed that in Late bilingual people, who have learned second language due to immigration and so on, when they are affected by Alzheimer Disease, their second language is deteriorated more than their first language, because Alzheimer Disease patients, are mainly damaged in their short term memory and also the tests administered, showed that their first language fits in their long-term memory and their second language places in their short-term memory and because of this reason, their second language gets more disordered than their first language.

Keywords:

Alzheimer disease , Late bilingual , First language (L1) , Second language (L2)