Researchers at the University of Toronto (U of T) specializing in language variation and change have identified a specific relationship between an individual’s use of language, and the transition from healthy to a diagnosis of severe dementia.
In a study of diary entries by Toronto resident Vivian White over a 31-year period, the researchers tracked the omission and then inclusion of the first-person pronoun “I” and found the transition occurred around the time she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The diaries span the period from 1985 to 2016, from age 60 to 90. Throughout the first 24 years, White omitted a subject up to 76 per cent of the time (e.g. March 23, 1985:…
