When Kirsty James was just thirteen years old she was informed that she would one day go blind. Before being diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition called Stargardt disease, she hid the fact that her vision was deteriorating; Kristy also came to believe that she might even be losing her mind because of the visions she was experiencing. Her hallucinations persisted without any explanation as to the cause, then she learned about Charles Bonnet Syndrome. It’s a condition that affects some people losing their vision; the brain replaces images with hallucinations because it's trying to make sense of what it is seeing.

“When a person starts to lose their sight, their brain doesn't receive as much information as it used to and it is thought that the brain sometimes responds by filling in the gaps with fantasy patterns or images that it's stored - these stored images are experienced as hallucinations.”

Assistive technology can help people with vision loss regain their independence, please contact us for more information.
 
“'I thought I was losing my mind, but I was actually losing my sight'”