‘A stroke left me with an Italian accent’

“I remember thinking, ‘Who’s he talking to?'”

On May 4, Althea Bryden was found unconscious in her bed with her face tilted to the right.

The 58-year-old woman, from Highbury, north London, was taken to hospital and found to have suffered a stroke, leaving her unable to speak or feel the upper-right side of her body.

Doctors identified a carotid web in his neck – a rare shelf-like structure that can obstruct blood flow to the brain – and, in August, they had surgery to remove it.

While recovering in intensive care the next day, she says a nurse woke her up to take her blood pressure and “quite suddenly, I started speaking”.

She says, “She seemed as shocked as I was. The nurse ran to call colleagues to my bedside. No one could believe that I was talking after so long.”

However, the medical staff also noticed something strange in his voice.

“They asked me if I had an Italian accent before the stroke and they were telling me I had a strong accent,” she says.

“In the whirlwind of it all, I became very confused.”

The grandmother, a medically retired customer service consultant, says she has never spoken Italian or even visited Italy, but has now acquired a distinct accent .

She claims she also uses words and mannerisms such as “mamma mia”, “bambino” and “si” in conversation without even realizing it.

“At first, I didn’t look like a queen, but I looked British. I’ve always lived in London, but my whole family is from Jamaica.”

Althea is waiting for a formal diagnosis but says her speech and language therapist suggested she do so foreign accent syndrome,

Rare condition described by NHS This occurs where a person’s speech deviates from their normal pronunciation, which other people may consider strange, and usually results from brain damage, such as from a stroke.

“Doctors and nurses saw me as a medical miracle – no nurse, doctor, therapist or surgeon had ever encountered foreign accent syndrome in their entire career,” says Althea.

“Then I realized how rare this condition is. I want more people to know about it.”

While she knows she is “lucky to be alive” after suffering a stroke, the 58-year-old woman feels she has lost her identity because of her condition and that she has “no control over the sounds she makes.” No control”.

“Even my laugh isn’t the same… I’m not me. I feel like a clown with an upside-down smile that people are watching perform.

She says, “It’s very sad – everything is different, even my body language is different. People are basically not getting me, I don’t know who I am.”

Every morning, Althea says she wakes up hoping her accent will go away but her speech therapists and doctors don’t know if her original voice will ever return.

“I’m still searching for the person I was before,” she says.

“Where do I find the button to turn this stuff off?”

Since having the stroke, she has received support from the Stroke Association, including home visits from a coordinator and attending support groups, which has helped her.

“It made me realize that foreign accent syndrome is part of my story and something I shouldn’t be ashamed of,” says Althea.

However, she has not yet met anyone else with foreign accent syndrome who has gone through the same experience, and says it often makes her feel isolated.

“I want to meet someone with it, and be able to relate to someone and have that connection.”