Matthew Layton and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio’s weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.

This week:

Phantom Images

We keep encountering stories of people who have lost sight seeing things that aren’t really there - their brains fill in the gaps for what their eyes can’t perceive.

We’ve done some digging and we’ve found someone to talk to us about this phenomenon.

His name is Scot Muirden and he’s the founder of the Charles Bonnet Foundation.

Scot tells us that there could be up to 40 million people worldwide could be suffering with this affliction and as many as 90% of them haven’t reported their symptoms to medical practitioners - or even family and friends.

In many cases, this is because the sufferer would effectively be admitting to ‘hallucinations’ which raises fears of psychiatric problems and resultant potentially frightening treatment paths 

Please get in touch with the show, whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio 1 or if you think there’s something we should be talking about.

You never know your story and your insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.

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CALL or TEXT: 04 500 78834

EMAIL: studio1@visionaustralia.org   

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/varadionetwork and http://twitter.com/whingeingpom  

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RESOURCES

The Charles Bonnet Foundation - https://www.charlesbonnetsyndrome.org/ 

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[PHOTO CAPTION: A picture of a cow in a living room. Or is it? Listen to find out more.]

Vision Australia gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.