Experiencing Acute Blindness: An Elderly Man’s Rosette Formation in a Blind Eye Treated Successfully by Immediate Globe Massage

Author(s): Dieter Schmidt

Background: Observation in acute central retinal artery occlusion

Methods: Ocular massage of a blind eye

Results: A patient’s unique observation in an episode of acute unilateral blindness is described. Blindness happened when the patient suddenly rose from a sitting position to standing. The patient immediately lay flat on his back and began to digitally massage the closed eye. By closing his normal seeing right eye, he noticed with the left blind one a nearly complete black visual field that was interrupted by many light oval spaces resembling a rosette which rapidly flickered continuously and rhythmically. Within seconds, and after intense ocular massage, his cleary visible peripheral visual field returned and during those seconds, he noticed that the black central visual field (with an unchanged rosette formation) was smaller than before. After another brief but intense ocular massage, the black visual field center disappeared completely. The left eye had recovered its normal vision, which persisted.

Conclusions: A central retinal artery occlusion in the left eye is quite probably the cause of his temporary blindness. The appearance of a rosette formation in a blind eye has never been described in the literature to the best of our knowledge.

Bullet points: Amaurosis, orthostatic failure, defective blood coagulation, central retinal artery occlusion, rosette, ocular massage