Youth wakes from coma speaking fluent Spanish despite no prior knowledge of the language
Thursday, October 27, 2016 @ 11:33 AM
A NATIVE English-speaking youth has woken from a coma fluent in Spanish, but struggling to express himself in his mother tongue.
Reuben Nsemoh, 16, suffered a brain trauma whilst playing soccer (football) in his home city of Atlanta, State of Georgia, USA, following a kick in the head.
This left him in a coma, although it has not been confirmed how long he was unconscious and fighting for his life.
And a report released on CNN yesterday (Tuesday) reveals Reuben awoke speaking fluent Spanish.
Although he had a very basic elementary knowledge of the language, his parents said he was barely able to string a sentence together in Spanish before he suffered a blow to the head.
This extremely rare condition is known as 'Foreign Accent Syndrome', and occurs after damage to the brain changes the way in which the patient speaks.
Sometimes this means they speak the same language but with a very different accent, but other times has even seen them wake up speaking another tongue altogether.
Anecdotal evidence cites at least one stroke patient in the UK who communicated in fluent French after the crisis was over, despite knowing nothing of the language beforehand.
Dr Karen Croot, one of the very few specialists in 'Foreign Accent Syndrome' in the world, says it is caused by 'damage to the motor control' in the brain.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com