The Huffington Post – Christopher Wanjek
“There are ways to reduce your risk of having a stroke — for example, you can exercise more and not smoke. But should a stroke occur, you might also be able to reduce your risk of losing brain function if you are a speaker of more than one language…The researchers found that more than 40 percent of the bilingual patients had normal cognitive functions following a stroke, compared with less than 20 percent of single-language patients. The bilingual patients also performed better on poststroke tests that measured their abilities to pay attention to retrieve and organize information…”People with more mental activities have more interconnected brains, which are able to deal better with potential damage,” said Dr. Thomas Bak, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and a co-author of the study.”(more)