An American man developed an Irish accent. After treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. The man was in his 50s and had never been to Ireland.
The accent was described as “uncontrollable”, meaning that the person couldn’t stop speaking with an Irish brogue, even when he tried. He continued to talk like this until his death.
This is the primary time a person has developed “foreign accent syndrome” linked to a prostate cancer diagnosis. And it’s Only the third case Of foreign accent syndrome linked to cancer – the others were breast cancer and brain cancer.
Foreign accent syndrome often occurs as a. A result of brain damage, corresponding to from a stroke. Strokes may cause a wide range of speech and language disorders, but foreign accent syndrome is certainly one of the more unusual.
Other causes of the syndrome are changes within the structure of the brain, corresponding to cancerous tumors, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative disorders corresponding to dementia.
The condition was first described by Perry MarieA French neurologist, in 1907. Marie described the case of a person who originally spoke French with a Parisian accent, but after a stroke, he began speaking with a regional French accent from the Strasbourg region of France.
To date, roughly 200 cases of foreign accent syndrome have been reported in clinical studies, making it a really rare speech disorder. Perhaps essentially the most well-known case is when George Michael spoke briefly in a West Country accent. When he got here out of a coma after affected by pneumonia in 2011. The singer hails from North London.
This condition will be distressing for patients because they lose a very important personality trait that’s expressed through their accent. The effects of this disease were first reported in 1947 by the Norwegian neurologist Monrad Kron. A woman from Norway said. Who suffered a severe head injury in a bomb attack throughout the Second World War. As a results of this loss, she spoke Norwegian with a German foreign accent, and this was quite difficult in post-war Norway.
He was often refused service in shops because people thought he was German. Being identified as a foreigner and being questioned on a regular basis will be very painful. The effect will be so severe that some patients resort to unusual methods to attain peace of mind. We heard a girl with the syndrome say that she enjoys staying in hotels since it is so natural to listen to a foreign accent within the hotel environment, so it goes unnoticed.
Psychological causes
In addition to wreck to the central nervous system, foreign accent syndrome can be brought on by psychological aspects corresponding to extreme stress. We have identifiedPsychiatric foreign accent syndrome“As a distinct type of foreign accent syndrome. In 2005, researchers were contacted by a native Dutch speaker who developed a heavy and persistent French accent after suffering severe stress as a result of nearly being hit by a car. Detailed Neurological investigations didn’t reveal mental abnormalities, but psychological tests indicated significant psychological problems. She fully returned to her original Dutch accent after only ten years.
Another version of this condition is “mixed foreign accent syndrome”. These patients first develop a foreign accent on account of brain damage after which try to alter their vocabulary to create a more convincing “foreign” persona. This was observed by the researchers University of Central Florida who checked out an American patient who developed a British accent after a stroke and who began using British English words corresponding to lift (as an alternative of elevator) and mum (as an alternative of mum).
The patient explained that it was easier for her to permit people to imagine she was from England than to try to elucidate that her accent was the results of a stroke. Although he insisted that his use of “Britain” was not under his conscious control.
Complete recovery from voice change is difficult and infrequently requires long-term speech therapy. But there have been cases of fairly rapid recovery.