![]() It might not, but forewarned is forearmed. Dr ffytche is my medical adviser.ĭespite being aware of CBS, healthcare professionals in the sight loss sector have not entirely appreciated the exact nature of the condition and the negative impact it has on those who develop it.Ĭonsequently, very few explain CBS or warn their patients that it might develop. His research has debunked some of the myths surrounding CBS – that it disappears after 18 months and that the hallucinations are always benign.Īfter my mother died, I launched Esme's Umbrella to raise awareness of CBS – both within the medical profession and out into the community - and gather funds for research. Consulting the internet, I found Dr Dominic ffytche of King's College London, who has done the only research on CBS and is the sole, globally-acknowledged expert on the condition. ![]() Unfortunately, her ophthalmologist declined to discuss CBS, her GP had never heard of it and neither had her optometrist. It was not until I read a tiny paragraph in a newspaper, which could have been written by my mother, that the word 'dementia' stopped hanging in the air. ![]() One day, it was an Edwardian funeral procession, complete with plumed horses and the clergy in red cassocks. She went on to describe her other 'visions', as she called them – a gargoyle-like creature which hopped from table to chair, a Victorian tear-stained street child who followed her everywhere and, sometimes, the whole room or garden morphed into somewhere else. It is so very much more than that, as I discovered the day my 92-year-old mother, Esme, said "I do wish these people would get off my sofa". Although noted by doctors over the centuries, no research on CBS was undertaken until 1998 and the condition has been too easily dismissed as 'just a side effect' of sight loss. He described how he saw people, birds, carriages, buildings, scaffolding patterns and the tapestries on the wall changing. Lullin's sight was compromised by severe cataracts but otherwise, he was psychologically sound. ![]() However, the brain does the opposite – it fires up and creates its own vivid, silent, visual hallucinations which can range from benign to terrifying.ĬBS has been acknowledged by ophthalmologists and optometrists since 1760 when Charles Bonnet – a Genevan lawyer, philosopher and naturalist - first documented the experience of Charles Lullin, his 97-year old grandfather. Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) is a condition which can develop in anyone of any age when over 60% of sight is lost from the myriad of eye diseases - stroke, cancer, diabetes - or even injury which can damage the optic pathway.Īs sight diminishes, messages from the retina to the visual cortex, slow down or stop entirely. ![]()
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