Foreign Accent Syndrome: What Medical Professionals Are Not Telling You

Lisa Alamia got the public attention after having been diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome. After her surgery in December, she woke up with an unexpected side effect: a new British accent according to a report on Yahoo News. "I was very shocked," Alamia said astonished having grown up in Texas. "I didn't know how to take it. I was very confused. I said 'Ya'll' all the time before the accent. Once I got the accent, I started noticing I'd say, 'You all,'" she added.

After a neurological damage like stroke, the Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) normally develops and affects an individual's speech, particularly its rhythm and tone, signaling a serious medical problem according to a report on ABC News. A sudden change in speech can be an indicator of a stroke and must be evaluated by a physician right away.

First described in 1907, the Foreign Accent Syndrome had about 100 documented cases around the world. One notable case during the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II was that of a Norwegian woman who was ostracized in her community when after a traumatic brain injury she developed a German accent. Another case, published in Practical Neurology, involved a Scottish woman who developed A German accent after a minor dental procedure.

Based on a study published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 86% of Foreign Accent Syndrome cases are related to neurological damage in the speech centers of the brain, from strokes, trauma, or other diseases such as multiple sclerosis. FSA patients do not usually take on a specific accent, but the major changes in their prosody can really be mistaken for a specific foreigner.

Another type of Foreign Accent Syndrome is not at all associated to any brain changes. Such Foreign Accent Syndrome cases are quite often psychological in nature. According to the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal, depression, anxiety, or emotional trauma can naturally change aspects of how the brain interprets information as well as can actually cause someone to change their speech patterns. This may occur regardless of the absence of detectable physiological trauma to the brain. This does not, however, entail the idea of a patient faking it, but it simply means changes may have actually occurred in their brain on a subconscious level.

 "It's such a rare condition that neurologists don't believe that this is a real condition. The big thing is to know that she's not faking it," said Dr. Toby Yaltho. Yaltho, who treated Alamia, is a member of Houston Methodist Sugar Land Neurology Associates. "

Foreign Accent Syndrome can be treated in a number of ways, ranging from behavioral therapy to speech therapy to anti-anxiety medications. Meanwhile, there are some patients who can actually recover their natural speech.