Traumatic Brain Injury and Foreign Accent Syndrome
An unusual story will be featured on the Discovery Health Channel in the show “Mystery ER” featuring a woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury and developed a foreign accent after a failed chiropractic adjustment. The show features real life medical mysteries using subject interviews and re-enactments of true events. The show will feature CindyLou Romberg who suffered a traumatic brain injury after falling out of the back of a Toyota in 1981 and splitting her head open from front to back. What makes Romberg’s recovery unusual is after a more recent failed chiropractic adjustment she developed a foreign accent described as sounding German, French or Russian and yet she has never studied the languages nor visited the countries. Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare disorder brought on by neurological damage that affects a person's ability to speak and creates the impression of a foreign accent. Without warning Romberg’s accent changes. Sometimes she can’t remember the name of an object and has to gesture at it. At other times incoherent babbling is spoken. Only 50 or 60 Foreign Accent Syndrome cases have been verified worldwide. Typically, neurological damage generally in the brain's left hemisphere is followed by the inability to use words properly or at all, then a gradual return of speech, albeit altered. Most cases develop within one or two years of the original injury. Jack Ryalls, an expert on neurologically based speech disorders at the University of Central Florida believes the FAS could be a recovery stage, the brain’s way of compensating for lost function by rewiring.
