Charles Bonnet Syndrome - Hallucinations Don't Always Mean You're Crazy

A while ago I had done a lot of research on a condition that has been plaguing my grandmother for about 8 years. Macular Degeneration has become the leading cause of central vision loss in the United States and has seemed to target those that are over fifty years old. My grandmother is in her eighties and has found that the severity after 8 years of the Macular Degeneration has halted, however the hallucinations associated with the disease has not. In fact, they have gotten extremely worse.

Years ago, it started out with a faint woman's face or a stuffed tiger floating in the darkness. Now, it has gotten more complex. Every night, my grandmother lies awake in bed and when the hallucinations come, it causes her to scream out in fright. She'll see a black dog at her bedroom door growling at her, or see a doll from my childhood fall from where it's sitting onto the floor, then the next minute it is back where it sat all these years like it never moved. The latest hallucination was that of a tall man wearing all black and a black hat walking down the hallway from her room then disappearing. My grandfather joked with her saying that it was Johnny Cash, the man in black himself, came to visit. But with all joking aside we all know just how serious this condition is getting.

The name of this condition is called Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Charles Bonnet Syndrome was discovered in 1760, however to this day it is still widely unknown by doctors. It seems like this is true because many of those suffering from the hallucinations know that they are having them, however do not want to admit to their doctors or loved ones because they may see it as the start of some mental disease.

Charles Bonnet Syndrome seems to affect those with very serious loss of sight at a time when the sight is worsening. Many claims from an array of medical documentations and web sites give a time frame of eighteen months where the hallucinations often stop. Often, is the key word considering my grandmothers hallucinations have been occurring frequently for the last 8 years and becoming more detailed and complex.