{"id":45388,"date":"2024-12-22T11:10:39","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T11:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/a-stroke-left-me-with-an-italian-accent\/"},"modified":"2024-12-22T11:10:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T11:10:40","slug":"a-stroke-left-me-with-an-italian-accent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/a-stroke-left-me-with-an-italian-accent\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A stroke left me with an Italian accent’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"FamilyFamily handout<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Althia Bryden started speaking with an Italian accent after she had a stroke<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“I remember thinking, ‘Who is that talking?'”<\/p>\n

On 4 May, Althia Bryden was found in her bed unresponsive and with her face visibly drooping on the right side.<\/p>\n

The 58-year-old, from Highbury, north London, was rushed to hospital and found to have had a stroke that had left her unable to speak or feel the upper-right side of her body.<\/p>\n

Doctors identified a carotid web in her neck – a rare shelf-like structure that can interrupt blood flow to the brain – as the cause and, in August, they performed surgery to remove it.<\/p>\n

The following day while recovering in intensive care, she says a nurse woke her to take her blood pressure and “completely out of the blue, I just started speaking”.<\/p>\n

“She looked as shocked as I did. The nurse rushed to get colleagues round to my bed. No-one could believe I was talking after so long,” she explains.<\/p>\n

However, the medical staff also noticed something strange about her voice.<\/p>\n

“They asked me if I had an Italian accent before my stroke and were telling me I had a strong accent,” she says.<\/p>\n

“In the whirlwind of it all, I was so confused.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"FamilyFamily handout<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Althia lives with her husband and full-time carer, Winston<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The grandmother, who is a medically retired customer service advisor, says she has never spoken Italian or even visited Italy, but has now gained a distinct accent.<\/p>\n

She claims she even uses words and mannerisms such as “mamma mia”, “bambino” and “si” in conversation without realising it.<\/p>\n

“Before, I didn’t sound like the Queen, but I sounded British. I’ve always lived in London, but all my family are from Jamaica.”<\/p>\n

Althia is waiting for a formal diagnosis but says her speech and language therapist has suggested she has foreign accent syndrome<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The rare condition is described by the NHS<\/a> as being where a person’s speech takes on an accent different from their usual one, which other people can think sounds foreign, and usually happens as a result of brain damage, such as from a stroke.<\/p>\n

“Doctors and nurses saw me as a bit of a medical marvel \u2013 none of the nurses, doctors, therapists or surgeons had dealt with foreign accent syndrome in their whole careers,” Althia says.<\/p>\n

“This is when I realised just how rare this condition is. I wish more people knew about it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘I don’t know who I am’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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While she knows she is “lucky to be alive” having suffered a stroke, the 58-year-old feels like she has lost her identity due to her condition and has “no control” over the sounds she makes.<\/p>\n

“Even my laugh is not the same\u2026 I’m not me. I feel like a clown with an upside-down smile that people are watching perform.<\/p>\n

“It’s very sad \u2013 everything is different, even my body language is different. People aren’t meeting the original me, I don’t know who I am,” she says.<\/p>\n

Each morning Althia says she wakes hoping her accent will be gone but her speech therapist and doctors do not know if her original voice will ever return.<\/p>\n

“I’m still looking for the person I was before,” she says.<\/p>\n

“Where do I go to find the button to switch this stuff off?”<\/p>\n

Since having her stroke, she has received support from the Stroke Association, including home visits from a coordinator and attending support groups, which have helped her.<\/p>\n

“It made me realise having foreign accent syndrome is part of my story, and I shouldn’t be ashamed,” Althia says.<\/p>\n

However, she has yet to meet anyone else with foreign accent syndrome who has been through the same experience, and says this often makes her feel isolated.<\/p>\n

“I want to meet someone with it, and be able to relate to someone and have that connection.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Family handout Althia Bryden started speaking with an Italian accent after she had a stroke “I remember thinking, ‘Who is that talking?’” On 4 May, Althia Bryden was found in her bed unresponsive and with her face visibly drooping on the right side. The 58-year-old, from Highbury, north London, was rushed to hospital and found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[47],"tags":[13101,1195,632,2411],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45390,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45388\/revisions\/45390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}