Foreign accent syndrome: ‘A stroke left me with an Italian accent’

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.

“Even my laugh is not the same… I’m not me. I feel like a clown with an upside-down smile that people are watching perform.

“It’s very sad – 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.

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.

“I’m still looking for the person I was before,” she says.

“Where do I go to find the button to switch this stuff off?”

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.

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

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.

“I want to meet someone with it, and be able to relate to someone and have that connection.”