ABSTRACT

Background

The severity of post-stroke aphasia has also been reported to be less in bilingual patients compared to their monolingual counterparts

Aim

To analyze the effect of bilingualism on aphasia recovery during the early post-stroke phase.

Methods

Bengali version of Western Aphasia Battery (WAB)was used for language assessment. It was administered during the first week and 90–100 days post-stroke. Severity assessment was done by calculating aphasia quotient (AQ). We enrolled 155 monolingual and 53 bilingual patients with aphasia, of whom 120 monolingual and 43 bilingual participants were followed up.

Results

The probability of recovering was higher for bilinguals than in monolingual patients. When the location of stroke was analyzed, the percentage of patients recovering in the “medium” class was higher for bilingual than monolinguals by fair margins for sub-cortical and mixed cortico-subcortical strokes With respect to gender, bilingual patients present better recovery than monolinguals in both genders, but especially in males. The mean improvement of AQ in low age (p = 0.22), high volume (p = 0.05), and low AQ (p = 0.17) groups were found to be fairly higher for bilinguals in contrast to monolinguals.

Conclusions

This is, to our knowledge, the first study reporting differences in aphasia recovery between bilingual and monolingual subjects. Bilingual participants experienced better aphasia recovery following a stroke when viewed through the lens of different variables.

中文翻译：

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双语对失语症康复的影响

摘要

背景

据报道，与单语患者相比，双语患者中风后失语症的严重程度较低

目的

分析双语对卒中后早期失语症恢复的影响。

方法

孟加拉语版的西方失语症电池 (WAB) 用于语言评估。它在中风后的第一周和 90-100 天内给药。通过计算失语商数 (AQ) 进行严重程度评估。我们招募了 155 名单语和 53 名双语失语患者，其中 120 名单语和 43 名双语参与者进行了随访。

结果

双语患者的康复概率高于单语患者。当分析中风的位置时，双语患者在“中等”级别康复的百分比高于单语患者，皮层下和皮质-皮质下混合中风的比例相当大。在性别方面，双语患者比单语患者表现出更好的恢复男女皆宜，尤其是男性。与单语者相比，双语者在低年龄 (p = 0.22)、高容量 (p = 0.05) 和低 AQ (p = 0.17) 组中 AQ 的平均改善要高得多。

结论

据我们所知，这是第一项报告双语和单语受试者失语症恢复差异的研究。当通过不同变量的视角观察时，双语参与者在中风后经历了更好的失语症恢复。