By Scot Muirden
Charles Bonnet would be dumbstruck if he were alive to today. To think that the condition he first described over 260 years ago continues to reside in the shadows of medical interest is baffling.
What’s more astounding is that CBS’ estimated prevalence rate within the vision-loss community has transitioned from ‘rare’ to ‘fairly common’. Yet those seeking more information about the syndrome from their GP, eye specialist or emergency ward practitioner are often met with a blank look: “Charles what?”
(Image courtesy of Jean Wimmerlin)
So we have this bizarre situation whereby a remarkable number of people – both the lay public as well as health care professionals – are undertaking online searches for information. Various terms are fed into the search engine:
- “Seeing things that are not there”
- “Elderly having visual hallucinations”
- “My mother sees brightly costumed figures in her home”
- “Can vision loss cause people to have apparitions?”
- “Can macular degeneration trigger visions?”
- “Seeing things others don’t see but mind is good”
- “Blind but seeing people”
- “Blind but seeing animals in detail”
- “My grandfather is seeing things but is mentally ok”
- “Can a blind person hallucinate visual things?”
- “Visions all over the tiled floor”
- “Clear images coming through the walls or windows”
- "Seeing things but mentally sharp"
- "Not psychotic but having visions of things not really there"
These types of searches are leading people to Charles Bonnet syndrome. It’s very often the first time they’ve encountered this medical name. It’s often the first time that a loved one’s peculiar visual symptoms start to make some sort of sense. It’s commonly the first time that slithers of clarity finally pierce the prolonged sense of confusion and unknowing.
{Image courtesy of Brett Jordan)
The left out letter I stands for ignored. The syndrome continues to fall through the cracks. Not just the cracks of the general population’s awareness but, far more concerningly, within the medical and health care system.
