What caused woman to see 'green men'?
When Elizabeth Murray, age 91, started to see a green man that no one else could see, her family became concerned that she was either suffering from dementia or mental illness. Her daughter Sue Murray wrote to Paula Span of The New York Times and explained that her mother started to see strangers and a green man. According to Murray, her mother told her family that “there were people in the cellar, people on the porch, people in the house. She’d point and say, ‘Don’t you see them?’ And she’d get mad when we didn’t.”
When Elizabeth Murray, age 91, started to see a green man that no one else could see, her family became concerned that she was either suffering from dementia or mental illness. Her daughter Sue Murray wrote to Paula Span of The New York Times and explained that her mother started to see strangers and a green man. According to Murray, her mother told her family that "there were people in the cellar, people on the porch, people in the house. She'd point and say, 'Don't you see them?' And she'd get mad when we didn't."
The family started to grow concerned about Elizabeth's mental health as the green man became such a fixture in the Connecticut home that Elizabeth shared with her husband Victor that she started hiding things from him.
Luckily Elizabeth's ophthalmologist was able to shed some light on what was happening to her. Elizabeth due to glaucoma and macular degeneration has been slowly losing her vision for years and it was her low vision that was causing the visual hallucinations not dementia or schizophrenia.
Called Charles Bonnet Syndrome, named for the philosopher who first described similar happenings in the 18th century, this condition is developed by patients with reduced vision. These visual hallucinations occur when the brain misinterprets the weaker signals coming from the eyes.
Murray said, "We were relieved. To have an eye doctor say, 'I am familiar with this,' it's still jarring but it's not so terrible."
According to Dr. Abdhish Bhavsar of the American Academy of Opthalmology, this syndrome affects about 10 percent of patients who have low vision. Personally he has treated about 200 patients in the last 17 years.
Considering our aging population and the almost 2.1 million Americans suffering from macular degeneration, more people might be having these visual hallucinations then we might realize. Many may be too afraid to open up about what they are experiencing.
Unfortunately, there is no known treatment for this condition. Sometimes these visions can appear erratically, popping up every few days or weeks or can be constant companions. They have been known to dissipate over time, but there seems to be no hard and fast rules for its presentation.
Just being able to put a name to what is happening to them seems to be enough to help most patients cope, but counseling at a low-vision rehabilitation center can be beneficial.
The important thing to remember is to not be afraid to talk about what you are going through. Not only will it help you adjust to your condition, but it will help raise more awareness of its existence and prevent misdiagnosis. One doctor was about to treat an elderly patient for schizophrenia when luckily he reached out to Dr. Bhavsar and learned about Charles Bonnet Syndrome.
It is important to note that if you are hearing things as well as seeing things, then your symptoms can not be attributed to the Charles Bonnet Syndrome.