Mexican American Adults Who Frequently Speak Both English and Spanish Have Slower Cognitive Decline, New UT Austin and UTMB Study Finds

New research suggests that Mexican American older adults who use English and Spanish with similar frequency demonstrate slower cognitive decline than those who use primarily one language. The findings by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas Medical Branch, which were published this month in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, could impact treatment of dementia in older adults.

"Our findings are evidence that the ability to speak multiple languages and use both regularly in daily life may have benefits for older Mexican American adults' cognitive functioning," said Brian Downer, associate professor in the Department of Population Health & Health Disparities at UTMB and lead author on the paper.

"Although the positive effects of bilingualism have been previously documented, our findings suggest a robust effect in Mexican Americans, who we know are at a greater risk for experiencing cognitive decline, which makes this finding particularly exciting," said Stephanie Grasso, an assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at UT Austin's Moody College of Communication.

The study was led by Brian Downer, along with Grasso and researchers Fernando Llanos Lucas, Sadaf Milani and Neil Mehta. It relied on publicly available data from the H-EPESE, a comprehensive cohort study that spans two decades focused on Mexican American older adults. Researchers looked specifically at the use of Spanish and English, which are the most likely to be spoken by the Mexican American population.

Older adults who more often use both English and Spanish scored significantly higher on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) than those who predominantly use only one language. The MMSE is a 30-point cognitive screener that samples five areas of cognitive function, including orientation, registration, attention and calculation, recall and language.

The University of Texas Medical Branch's Department of Population Health & Health Disparities and Sealy Center on Aging supported the research, along with contributions from UT Austin's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and the Department of Linguistics, which provided a seed grant to support the project.

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