{"id":380336,"date":"2026-01-20T13:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380336\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T13:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:20:10","slug":"sevenoaks-councillor-with-mnd-uses-ai-to-keep-his-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380336\/","title":{"rendered":"Sevenoaks councillor with MND uses AI to keep his voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">MND affects nerves found in the brain and spinal cord, which tell your muscles what to do, which leads them to weaken and stiffen over time and usually affects how you walk, talk, eat and breathe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The form of MND that the Liberal Democrat councillor has begins in the mouth and throat, before progressing to other parts of the body.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 58-year-old said he felt &#8220;terrible shock and fear&#8221; after his diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was nine months after I first noticed at a council meeting that my voice was sounding ever so slightly odd, a tiny bit slurred,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Since his diagnosis, the former journalist has been involved in fundraising for charities connected to MND.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His participation in the 2025 Moonlight Walk by Hospice in the Weald, which had been caring for him since his diagnosis, raised more than \u00a311,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In December, he also took part in a charity run in Leeds, raising more than \u00a310,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MND affects nerves found in the brain and spinal cord, which tell your muscles what to do, which&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-380336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}