The patient, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, developed “an uncontrollable Irish accent”, despite never having visited Ireland or having any Irish relatives.
According to researchers from Duke University and the Carolina Urological Research Center in the United States, the man’s disorder “was consistent with foreign accent syndrome (SAE).”
The doctors presenting the case, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), point out that the disorder, which is rare, lasted the patient for about 20 months, until his death.
“To our knowledge, this is the first case of SAE described in a patient with prostate cancer and the third described in a patient with malignancy (metastasis),” the authors note.
What is SAE
There are very few studies on this disorder, but as the authors point out, SAE occurs more commonly in patients who have suffered strokes, brain injuries, or those who have psychiatric disorders.
Research in 2008 conducted at the University of Antwerp in Belgium describes SAE as “a motor speech disorder that results in pronunciation that is clearly perceived as foreign.”
The researchers noted that the disorder had been “well documented” in adults with brain lesions that affect the brain’s motor network that controls language.
But they also explained that there are reports of patients in whom the SAE was due to a psychiatric disorder.
Other studies, however, indicate that SAE may result from a stroke or develop from a stroke. trauma cranioencephalicmigraines or developmental problems.
According to research, the disorder appears to occur due to damage to areas of the brain specialized in language.
These damages cause “distortion of the articulation and coordination processes” resulting, to the untrained ear, in the perception that those with SAE are speaking another language or with a foreign accent.
Researchers who have studied SAE stress, however, that despite popular stories about patients with brain or vascular damage acquiring a foreign language or accent after their injury, “there have been no verified cases in which the abilities to speak a foreign language have improved after a brain injury.
“Uncontrollable Accent”
In the case of the US patient, his name and nationality were not released, but the man was reported to have lived in England when he was 20 years old and had distant friends and family from Ireland.
However, the authors emphasize in the BMJ, he had never spoken with this foreign accent before.
“Her accent was uncontrollable, present in all settings, and gradually became persistent,” the researchers say.
This seems to be one of the extremely rare cases that develops as a consequence of cancerous tumors.
“He had no neurologic examination abnormalities, no psychiatric history, or brain MRI abnormalities at the time of symptom onset,” the researchers explain.
And they suspect that the cause of the SAE in this individual was a disorder called paraneoplastic neurological syndrome.
The disorder can arise in some cancer patients whose immune systems attack parts of the brain, spinal cord, nerves, or muscles.
The patient was treated with chemotherapy but his disease, a neuroendocrine cancer of the prostate, progressed.
This resulted in a brain metastasis and a progressive paralysis that led to his death.
The researchers say that the case of this patient stresses the need for more research about foreign accent syndrome.
“This unusual presentation highlights the importance of additional literature on SAE and paraneoplastic neurological syndrome associated with prostate cancer to improve understanding of the links between these rare syndromes and their clinical trajectory,” the report concludes.
Other cases
The BBC has documented other cases of people presenting SAE.
In 2006, British Linda Walker suffered a stroke and found her Northern English accent had been replaced with “a Jamaican-sounding voice”.
Another case was that of Julie Matthias, 49, an Englishwoman who was left speaking with different foreign accents, including South African, French and Italian.
Julie developed SAE after suffering a severe migraine in 2011 and developed other stroke-like symptoms, including right-sided weakness.
One of the first reported cases was in 1941 when a young Norwegian woman developed a German accent after being hit by shrapnel from a bomb during a World War II air raid.
The woman was shunned by locals who thought she was a Nazi spy.
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