A six-year-old child I know of sees heads as though they're shrinking. My friend, who has regular contact with him brushed it off as an overactive imagination, although she did admit it is very out-of-character for him. He regularly comments on the shrinking appearance. The reason I'm interested is because the child already has a degree of colour-blindness, mixing up his greens and reds. It sounds to me like a type of retinal defect, though I have no clue as to what type. Maybe I'm being paranoid. Thoughts?
2007-01-09 07:51:24 · 2 answers · asked by the answer chancer 2 in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Other - Diseases
Very interesting case: Consider the following, if the child has this defect and color blindness, consider a cause in the visual cortex of the brain. The area of the temporal lobe just outside the occipital cortex have roles in identifying shapes and colors. Does the child only get the illusion when the person is facing them? I think this could be a variant of prosopagnosia.
I would really consider seeing a neurologist and getting an MRI.
2007-01-09 10:58:49 · answer #1 · answered by Drdrew 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If this were a visual defect, I would think that the boy would see entire bodies or objects shrinking and not just heads. If this is a factual phenomenon, it would seem to me to be lens-related or neuropathic rather than retinal. And there's a remote possiblity that the boy could have juvenile macular degeneration and is only able to describe what he sees as shrinking heads. Perhaps your friend should mention this to the boy's parents. They may say something revealing.
2007-01-09 16:07:12 · answer #2 · answered by TweetyBird 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋