‘A stroke left me with an Italian accent’ | Global News Avenue

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

On May 4, Althia Bryden was found unresponsive in bed, her face visibly drooping toward the right side.

The 58-year-old, from Highbury, north London, was rushed to hospital and found she had suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak or feel the upper right side of her body.

Doctors identified the carotid artery network in her neck – a rare shelf-like structure that interrupts blood flow to the brain – as the cause, and performed surgery to remove it in August.

The next day, while recovering in the intensive care unit, she said a nurse woke her up to take her blood pressure and “totally out of the blue, I just started talking.”

“She looked as shocked as I did. The nurse rushed her colleagues to my bedside. No one believed I spoke after so long,” she explained.

However, medical staff also noticed something strange about her voice.

“They asked me before I had the stroke if I had an Italian accent and told me I had a strong accent,” she said.

“I feel so confused in the whirlwind of it all.”

The grandmother, a medically retired customer service consultant, said she had never spoken Italian or even been to Italy but now had a distinct accent.

She claimed she even used words and habits like “mamma mia,” “baby” and “yes” in conversation without realizing it.

“Before, I didn’t sound like the Queen, but I sounded British. I’ve always lived in London, but my family are from Jamaica.”

Althea is awaiting a formal diagnosis, but she said her speech and language therapist advised she has foreign accent syndrome.

describes a rare situation by the National Health Service A person’s speech has a different accent than usual, which may sound unfamiliar to others, and often occurs due to a brain injury such as a stroke.

“Doctors and nurses think I’m a medical miracle — no nurse, doctor, therapist or surgeon has ever encountered foreign accent syndrome in their entire careers,” Arcia said.

“At this point I realized how rare this condition is. I wish more people knew about it.”

While she knew she was “lucky to be alive” after her stroke, the 58-year-old felt she had lost her identity due to her condition and had “no control” over the sounds she made.

“Even my laugh was different… I wasn’t me. I felt like a clown with an upside-down smile on my face and people were watching.”

“It’s very sad – everything is different, even my body language is different. People don’t see the old me, I don’t know who I am,” she said.

Althea said she wakes up every morning wishing her accent would go away, but her speech therapist and doctors don’t know if her original voice will ever come back.

“I’m still looking for who I was before,” she said.

“Where can I find the button to turn these things off?”

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

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

However, she has yet to meet anyone with foreign accent syndrome who has gone through the same experience, which she says often leaves her feeling isolated.

“I wanted to use it to get to know someone and be able to connect with someone and make that connection.”