Strange Speech Phenomenon: Foreign Accent Syndrome
Prostate cancer patient from America exhibits third case of Cancer-Induced Foreign Accent Syndrome, adopting an Irish dialect.
Hey there! Ever heard of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS)? It's a mind-bending neurological condition that turns the way a person talks into something sounding like an exotic accent. Though it's rare as hen's teeth, it's got people talking!
Take this US bloke in his 50s, diagnosed with prostate cancer, who, out of nowhere, starts sounding like he's got a pot o' gold and a wee bit o' the luck o' the Irish in him. As reported in BMJ Case Reports, this was the third time FAS was linked to cancer, and the first time it was linked to prostate cancer.
But don't get too excited, FAS ain't folk just learnin' to speak a new language. It's a weird neurological thing where people's speech patterns get all jumbled up, making it sound like they've picked up an accent from another country. In this case, that change happened to be Irish.
The paper stated that the man had no previous neurological issues or abnormalities, nor any psychiatric history. His brain scans showed prostate cancer progression, even though tests indicated undetectable levels of the prostate-specific antigen. Doctors believe that an underlying paraneoplastic neurological disorder — brain damage caused by the immune system's response to cancer — was responsible for the man developing an Irish brogue.
Basically, his immune system tried to kick cancer's ass, but in the process, it caused some damage to his brain, leading him to talk with an accent that sounded Irish.
First described by doctors in 1907, only around 100 instances of FAS have been on record, with most cases due to stroke or traumatic brain injury. In this instance, the man's foreign accent lingered until his eventual death from cancer as the metastases reached his brain.
FAS has been linked to cancer a scant few times before this, such as a 2008 case study of a 60-year-old woman who developed FAS due to metastatic breast cancer and a similar 2013 report of a 50-year-old Italian woman with a strange accent.
One of the most famous cases of FAS occurred shortly after World War II, involving a Norwegian woman named Astrid. Struck by shrapnel during a raid, she spoke to neurologist Georg Herman Monrad-Krohn two years later, who took her for German or French despite her fluently speaking Norwegian. The misunderstanding led to Astrid being ostracized in the community.
Originally referred to as "dysprosody" by Monrad-Krohn, FAS was coined as its official name by neurolinguist Harry Whitaker in 1982. In most cases of FAS, individuals have difficulty producing vowels due to brain damage affecting their ability to control the movement of their tongue. The altered vowels may give the impression of a foreign accent.
- The strange neurological condition, Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS), can be linked to medical conditions, as demonstrated by the US man diagnosed with prostate cancer who developed an Irish accent.
- Beyond strokes and traumatic brain injuries, FAS has also been linked to cancer, such as in a 2008 case study of a woman with metastatic breast cancer and a 2013 report of an Italian woman with a peculiar accent.
- FAS is not simply a matter of learning a new language, but rather a neurological issue that causes speech patterns to become jumbled, resulting in an accent from another country.
- Mental health, neurological disorders, health, and wellness are intertwined, as seen in the case of the man with FAS, who had no previous neurological issues or abnormalities but developed an Irish brogue due to an underlying paraneoplastic neurological disorder caused by his prostate cancer.
