He contracted a severe case of blarney.
According to researchers who researched the medical anomaly, an American cancer patient developed a “uncontrollable” Irish accent due to a probable neurological issue produced by his immune system.
Doctors from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, were treating a man in his 50s for prostate cancer when he began speaking with a “Irish brogue” accent for the first time in his life, according to a story published in the January issue of BMJ Case Reports.
According to the report, which was co-authored by researchers from Carolina Urologic Research Center in South Carolina, “His accent was uncontrollable, present in all settings, and gradually became pervasive.”
According to the report, the guy got foreign accent syndrome around two years after being diagnosed with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, despite never having lived in or visited Ireland (FAS).
Before acquiring an accent reminiscent of “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the patient had no history of psychiatric illness, according to the researchers.
They also observed that he had briefly resided in England and had Irish family and acquaintances.
According to the experts, the most likely explanation of the speech change is a so-called paraneoplastic neurological condition, which was triggered while the patient’s immune system fought the cancer.
According to the findings, the man’s cancer-fighting drugs likely affected his brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, or muscles, creating foreign accent syndrome.
Before passing away, the patient suffered paralysis in his legs and arms, a symptom of paraneoplastic disease, according to the researchers.
The article notes, “To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of FAS in a patient with prostate cancer and the third reported case in a patient with malignancy.”
Foreign accent syndrome, commonly referred to as dysprosody, is characterized by a continuous alteration in speech that manifests as a foreign accent.
According to previous studies, the syndrome is also associated with stroke, head trauma, and a history of psychiatric disease.
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