Chris Kamara: I woke up one morning and the connection between my brain and voice went

Chris Kamara has opened up about the morning he first experienced symptoms of a speech disorder which would later come to be diagnosed as apraxia.

The former footballer turned legendary broadcaster was diagnosed with the rare condition in 2022.

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, apraxia of speech is a disorder which affects the pathways from the brain and makes it difficult for someone to say what they want to correctly or consistently.

But, speaking to Andy Goldstein and Darren Bent on talkSPORT's Drive show, Kamara said that when he first started experiencing symptoms, he had no idea what was happening to him.

He said: «I woke up one morning and all of a sudden the connection between the brain and the voice went for some reason.

»So I thought I must have had too many beers last night, it'll be alright once I get through the day — and it never [was], it stayed there.

«I couldn't believe what was happening — I thought 'Have I got dementia? Have I got Alzheimer's? Have I had a bang on the head and I can't recover from it?'»

Kamara admitted that one of the most difficult decisions he had to take was choosing to share his symptoms with loved ones and with medical specialists.

He said: «There was all those things going through my mind and I went into denial because of the fact that I kept it to myself instead of being a bigger person and speaking to someone.

»I kept it from my family, I kept it from the doctors, everybody and carried on as if it wasn't there."

When he did take the decision to seek medical advice, the news he received was both shocking and frightening.

Kamara had already been diagnosed with an under-active thyroid but was then advised by a specialist to have