Striking loss of second language in bilingual patients with semantic dementia

Background Studies of bilingual or multilingual patients with neurodegenerative diseases that disrupt language like the primary progressive aphasias (PPA) may contribute valuable information on language organization in the bilingual brain and on the factors affecting language decline. There is limited literature on bilingual PPA and in particular on semantic dementia, a type of PPA with selective loss of semantic memory. We studied the nature and severity of naming and comprehension deficits across languages in bilingual patients with semantic dementia (SD).