British mum diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome as she turned Swedish after heart attack

Foreign Accent Syndrome has been a mystery to doctors for years. All of a sudden, some people wake up speaking with a different accent, and there is no scientific explanation yet. Georgina Gailey, a 60-year-old British mum, explained her ordeal to What's The Jam. Here's what happened to her.

Georgina Gailey suddenly turned Swedish

While on the phone with her sister, Georgina's speech suddenly started slurring, and she began speaking with a Swedish accent. Worried, she rushed to the hospital, where doctors believed she was suffering from a stroke. However, her exams came back normal. It took her doctors another two weeks before they eventually diagnosed her with Foreign Accent Syndrome. She explained to What's The Jam:

It's changed my life, there's a huge piece of me missing. I was very well spoken and now I sound Swedish. I say 'ja' rather than yes. I didn't notice how different it was at first until I listened to my answer phone message.

Georgina Gailey, from Hillingdon, Middlesex, had a heart attack a year before her sudden change of accent. She said:

I had a heart attack a few months before. I was getting better and was getting ready to get back to work.

She has been stuck with her new accent for three years

The mother-of-two has been speaking with a Swedish accent for the last three years. Her condition has ruined her life, as she explained:

It's so different. People will ask where I come from and when I tell them I'm English, they laugh. They think I'm Swedish.

What might come on as a joke to other people is actually making Georgina very sad.

When people laugh, I smile on the surface but underneath it makes me sad. They think I'm foreign but I'm English born and bred.

Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare disorder, where a person's accent changes without any explanation or warning signs. According to the Mirror, it can occur after a trauma such as a heart attack or a stroke. Georgina has spent the last three years visiting different neurologists and speech therapists in order to get her old accent back, but so far nothing has worked. She says she is terrified she will be stuck forever. She explained:

My poor family have to put up with me. The longer I have the accent the more likely it is that it will stay. My brain will get used to speaking like this. It's strange because if I sing, I sound English. It does change depending on how much sleep I get.

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Sources used:

Mirror: 'I had a heart attack - there's a sad reason why people laugh when I talk now'

Daily Mail: SOS! Woman starts speaking in a Swedish accent after heart attack in a rare case of 'foreign accent syndrome'

What's The Jam: Brit mum stuck with Swedish accent for three years after heart attack