In all our senses, vision is probably the most important thing, in this article we will talk specifically about one of the lesser known eye diseases: Charles Bonnet syndrome.
Our entire world is set around our ability to perceive the environment in images, so diseases that affect vision are a big concern and every year we devote many resources and efforts to prevent and cure them.
- Many of these diseases we already know.
- Problems such as myopia.
- Astigmatism or cataracts are very common in our environment.
- Among the least common diseases one of the most curious is Charles Bonnet syndrome.
In this article we will see what this problem consists of, as well as everything we currently know about its origin and the different interventions developed to combat it.
This vision disorder is one of the least known and understood of all that exist and is characterized by the appearance of visual hallucinations in patients with eye loss.
This disease usually occurs in patients with cataract or glaucoma problems, or in those with a problem in the visual areas of the brain.
The hallucinations present in Charles Bonnet syndrome are very vivid and realistic, however, unlike other disorders in which similar situations occur, patients are well aware that what they see does not actually happen, so it differs from other problems such as schizophrenia or the use of toxic substances.
Thus, hallucinations occur in people whose only health problem is vision, so to diagnose Charles Bonnet syndrome it is necessary to have excluded the presence of dementia, mental disorders or any type of intoxication.
Vision problems often occur, especially in old age, so this disease is much more common in this part of the population.
The hallucinations produced by Charles Bonnet syndrome are quite varied, however, they have a number of common characteristics:
Science has not yet explained exactly why Charles Bonnet syndrome appeared, a single cause has not yet been found to know the reason for these hallucinations, however, there are already several theories that try to clarify something about this condition.
According to the most accepted theory today, this syndrome appears because brain neurons no longer receive the levels of stimulation they were used to, so they become much more sensitive to all external stimuli and, in some cases, can they even?Make your own stimuli.
Regarding treatment, there is still no totally effective cure for this visual disorder, so doctors often treat Charles Bonnet syndrome in a palliative rather than curative way.
On the one hand, the first step for health professionals is to inform the patient of what is happening, it must be thought that many of them may feel anxious to perceive a parallel of “reality”. Therefore, your doctor should explain that this is a visual disorder and that controlling this disease can minimize your risks.
Subsequently, the usual approach is to try to solve the visual problem, in most cases it has been shown that operating the patient to restore visual acuity eliminates hallucinations.