[Charles Bonnet's syndrome]

Charles Bonnet's syndrome is characterized by the existence of visual hallucinations without psychiatric manifestations or cognitive disorder. Most patients are elderly people with severe visual problems. The objective of this paper is to describe the cases of three patients with this syndrome. The first is an 87 year old woman with bilateral cataract who had visual hallucinations seeing women and faces. The second is another 87 year old woman with advanced myopia and visions of people, animals and objects. The third is a 52 year old woman with atypical pigmentary retinopathy who suffered visual hallucinations of objects and animals in color. The neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies were not contributory. Treatment with neuroleptics or antiepileptics was effective only in one case. We conclude that it is important to know the syndrome and to differentiate it from psychiatric semiology. Deafferentation of the visual cortex could be the decisive factor in the occurrence of visual hallucinations.