Aurelie Le Moigne / EyeEm / Getty Images/EyeEm
The Irish accent is recognizable for its rolled “r”. (Illustrative photo)
HEALTH – The story may seem unusual, but it is no less serious. As relayed by several Anglo-Saxon media, including the BBC, this Friday, February 17, an American patient with prostate cancer developed an “uncontrollable Irish accent” during his treatment.
This is what emerges from a scientific study published by oncology researchers at Duke University, in the United States, in the British Medical Journalduring the month of January.
What’s next following this ad
As indicated BFM TV, the authors of the study recognized the accent by the hardening of certain consonants and the very strong pronunciation of the letter “r”. And this, even though the patient in his fifties, who suffered from this disorder regarding twenty months before succumbing to the disease, had never set foot in Ireland and had no Irish origin .
A rare but known phenomenon
This phenomenon is known to scientists. This is called foreign accent syndrome. It can occur following a very strong shock, such as following a head trauma. It is a rare phenomenon, but recorded since 1907. In 2010, for example, a British woman began to speak with “a Chinese accent” seven years following a vascular accident, says the Guardian.
What is surprising in the case of the new patient is that the latter suffered from no apparent problem in the brain, note the researchers in their study. They believe that the cancer has progressed despite chemotherapy treatment, “resulting in multifocal brain metastases, and most certainly a paraneoplastic neurological syndrome”. In other words, it would have indirectly affected the brain.
What’s next following this ad
This is a first, according to these same researchers. ” To our knowledge, this is the first case of the syndrome described in a patient with prostate cancer and the third described in a patient with a malignant tumor. “, can we read. Scientists do not intend to stop there. They say they want to continue their research.
See also on Le HuffPost :
