Elderly Say They See Strangers Standing at Home, Doctors Say It’s a Condition

Some elderly people with poor eyesight suddenly tell their families there’s someone in the house. They say a woman in old-fashioned clothes stands by the window, and a child squats on the carpet. Some see a row of little people in uniforms walking across the wall; some see patterned images shifting on the wall; some see one unfamiliar face after another.

Families assume it’s dementia or a haunting, so they call a Taoist priest—or go to the hospital.

After examination, doctors may tell them: Charles Bonnet Syndrome. The name comes from Charles Bonnet, an eighteenth-century Swiss man who wrote about his own maternal grandfather, an almost blind old man who sat at home and saw people and houses that didn’t exist. Later doctors found that many people with declining vision—especially elderly people with severe macular degeneration or cataracts—experience this.

It’s a visual hallucination caused by failing eyesight. When the eyes can’t see clearly, the brain receives fewer images and starts filling in the gaps, conjuring up people, animals, and patterns that are clear and lifelike.

One characteristic: these elderly people are usually lucid. They know the figures aren’t real, and they ask: Can you see them?

This condition is common, but many people don’t know about it and are afraid to speak up, fearing they’ll be labeled mentally ill.

There’s no specific drug. Doctors generally advise families to keep the lights on, spend more time with the patient, take care of their eyes, and treat any underlying eye problems. Some find that blinking, turning their head, or moving to another room makes the hallucination disappear. Others simply get used to watching them and even give names to the little people in the hallucinations.

However, if the elderly person starts losing the distinction between real and unreal, or their stories become contradictory, they should go to the hospital as soon as possible—that’s different and could be another illness.

#Paranormal #网络转载 #科学解释