'My stroke left me with foreign accent'

When Richard Murray called his banking clients, his strong Birmingham accent heavily laced with a Hereford twang made him instantly recognisable.

But a year ago, Richard, 30, had a stroke and lost the power of speech. Now he speaks with a heavy foreign accent.

Some say his accent is definitely French, others are sure it is Eastern European or Italian.

"Now when I call my clients and say 'It is me, Richard Murray', they say 'Who?'. They don't recognise my voice.

"So now when I speak to people I preface it with: 'I have had a stroke and this is why I speak with a foreign accent'.

"When I was first re-learning to speak the only words I could say were hi, bye, yes and no. So if anyone asked me anything else I was lost.

"I remember being at the till at the supermarket when I heard someone say 'bloody foreigner'.

"I have also had people expecting me to speak in foreign languages because of my accent."

Richard's health problems started when he broke his toe while on honeymoon in Mauritius in September 2005.

He flew back to the UK days later and developed a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or blood clot.

Unbeknown to him, Richard had a hole in his heart which had been present from birth.

The blood clot had travelled through the hole into his brain and led to him having a stroke nine days later.

He had the hole in his heart repaired and, with the help of a physiotherapist, he regained movement in his right side, but he had to relearn his speech from scratch.

"I didn't know much about stroke and just assumed that once the clot had dispersed that I would be able to speak again.

"I didn't know that it meant a part of my brain had been damaged and that I would have to learn to speak again."

He said that although speaking with a foreign accent was unusual, he was just delighted to be able to communicate again.

"I am quite a chatty man, so it was frustrating not to be able to join in conversations."

Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome have suffered damage to the tiny areas of the brain that affect speech.

The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, such as Spain or France - even though the sufferer has limited exposure to that accent.

The syndrome was first identified during World War II, when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain. She developed a strong German accent which led to her being ostracised by her community.

Dr Keith Muir, a senior lecturer in neurology at the University of Glasgow, said that while the cause of the foreign accent was not known, many believed it to be simply damaged speech patterns.

"This only affects a very small percentage of people who have had strokes," he said.

"After a stroke the brain tends to reorganise itself, and you tend to find that someone who had an additional language loses it and has to relearn it and their other learned knowledge."

Dr Muir added that loss of speech and altered speech patterns could cause serious distress to people who had had strokes.

'It is quite common for people to be confused about speech and to have problems following stroke.

"But there can be quite pejorative implications put on people with slurred speech, such as that they have been drinking or that their intelligence is impaired."

Beverley Silke, of the Stroke Association said: "Someone in the UK has a stroke every five minutes.

"It is the leading cause of adult disability and Richard has shown true courage and determination in overcoming the effects of his stroke."

You guys are going to think I’m nuts, but I run into this all the time. I’m a therapist and use deep trance hypnosis techniques to remove the emotion attached to stored traumatic memories. When I uncover these memories they often take on whole new personalities and identities. It has worked well in many situations including rape victims and post traumatic stress disorder of war vets. I’ve had vets speaking fluently in languages they had never learned.

What I am saying here is a description of the tip of the proverbial iceberg of about 15 years work. The stroke symptoms are also pretty common. But it is often not a stroke. Big difference is these often start in the hands or feet and move up the limb into the body. It’s caused by an energy which is very similar to the one that causes goose bumps and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

One of the first sessions I did was in the early nineties for a 38 year old emergency room nurse of a local hospital who was having severe pain in the left side of her body. The Dr’s said it was arthritis which was so severe she was going on disability. When I asked...”If that pain could speak, what would it say?” a male voice answered me out of this woman’s mouth and said..”Get out of here!” He proceeded to tell me his name, wife’s name, address, and children’s names. He explained that he was killed in a car accident and followed his body into the emergency room where he saw this nurse who was open and attached. He left after a short healing session and so did all her pain. Yes I did later confirm his story. I’ve encountered many sub-personalities, but this was not one. It freaked out this very logical left brained researcher as what had happened was outside my experience and belief system..

No, I am not on nor do I use drugs. Either illegal or prescribed. Human consciousness is a very complex thing of which my research has only scratched the surface.

I’m not sure why I am posting this as I usually do not share like this and expose myself to the scientific ridicule. Not that it bothers me, but it isn’t worth the energy to try and convince closed minds. My goal is to help people.... not build my ego.

I'm not trying to shoot down your post at all (very interesting!), but let me point out the obvious explanations:

1. First, in the above post, the "foreign accent" is really just a speech impediment (caused by the stroke) that makes his speech sound like a foreign accent. (Other speech impediments don't sound like foreign accents; it so happens that this one does.) I once worked with a woman who, for a few days, I assumed to be British from her accent. Then once in conversation I asked where she was from, and she said Texas. I must have looked at her with a very puzzled face, trying to reason out how a Texan grew up British. She must have gotten that look a lot, because she explained that she had a speech impediment (a rather nice one if you ask me! her accent was quite pleasing and nice :)

2. The people who speak "fluently in languages they had never learned" actually had learned those languages, at least well enough to say whatever sentence(s) you heard. Maybe they heard a few sentences on the radio or while travelling or in a movie, and those sentences stayed in their brain, and your trance brought them out. So in normal life they would of course say, truthfully, they "never learned Italian", or whatever, but they have heard Italians speak, at least a few times. Do they "remember" every such sentence they heard years ago? Of course not. But could it be brought out in a trance state? Since you're a hypnotherapist, I would think your answer would be yes.

3. The ER nurse with a seemingly-dead personality inside of her? Well, an injured guy was brought in to her ER one night, and she helped work on him; obviously she knew his name. Maybe she got his address from his wallet, which they examined to identify him & find contact info. Maybe she had to make the phone call to his wife. Maybe she learned the kids' names in the course of these dealings. And maybe the whole incident made her feel particularly bad, so much so that her brain tried to wall off the pain of it in this particular way, as a defense mechanism.

Are these not the likely explanations? Best,

Yes, I agree with you. These could possibly be caused by other factors. I described just a few points. There is much more detailed proof that I left out. Such as the details of the accident scene. Specific personal information the nurse was not exposed to..... I am an educated person, very logical, and yes, an extreme skeptic. But, I also have an open mind. Hopefully not that open that my brains fall out!

I try my best to look at the facts and make decisions, not make decisions and look for the facts to support my decisions. Good experimental methodology and the ability to replicate my work in a controlled setting is important. Needless to say, I freak out the scientists and medical school faculty with my demonstrations on how the human mind works. The main focus of my research is how and where the human mind stores and retrieves memories. This has led to a different understanding of developmental psychology from all the current models. (I do not consider psychology a science) I have a degree in psychology and must say.... my time was better spent learning anatomy, physiology, chemistry, biology and neuroscience.

One side note that makes me sick to think about, I have seen stage hypnosis techniques used in charismatic religious settings to cause people to speak in and interpret tongues. I am trained in stage hypnosis, but would never do it. Please do not think that I do not believe in the real thing. I do, but also can see the imitation of the real thing. I am deeply religious, but based upon scientific understanding and logic of religion, not based upon faith alone. Yes, I am Christian and occasionally do presentations in churches on “Why the Bible teaches what it does.” I do not discount it or explain it away, but demonstrate why it teaches its wisdom.

One other side note.... linguistics is a function of muscle tension, position & movement. Stress, whether from a physiological condition such as a stroke, or memories that are anchored in those muscles will cause a change in sounds communicated. What I have experienced is a change in dialect, such as an Old English or Irish Brogue.

Another example of this is a session with a guy who wanted to stop smoking. (I do not do stop smoking sessions as smoking is a symptom and if repressed the tension may manifest in an even unhealthier symptom such as an illness.) He had a speech impediment. Shortly after he went into trance I merely stated..”Go back in time to when you first felt that tickling feeling in your throat.” This 40 year old man started bawling like a little boy. I asked “What’s going on?” He (in a little boy’s voice) blurted out the name of a friend of his mother’s from church who sexually molested him and he couldn’t tell his mother. He was 10 yrs old at the time of the event. Both his mother and the molester had since died. The subconscious mind cannot differentiate between imagination and reality as it relates to emotional thought processing. I had him visualize his mother....tell her what had happened and presto....the speech impediment he had for 30 years was gone. Please note that I use a non-directive questioning technique so as to avoid the formation of false memories. Too many real bad therapists who plant false memories in therapy, especially with children. Ever want to read some excellent research on this...read Loftus research on false memory formation. Best stuff out there on the subject.

Funny thing....I substituted the suggestion that every time he had an urge for a cigarette he would drink a glass of water. A week later he came back and pleaded with me....He couldn’t drink any more water. He went from four packs of cigarettes per day to zero for the entire week, but was consuming several gallons of water per day. I changed to suggestion from “glass of water” to “sip of water” to remove his burden! Sad but funny!

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