Motor and non-motor correlates of olfactory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.
Berendse HW, Roos DS, Raijmakers P, Doty RL.
J Neurol Sci. 2011 Jun 24. [Epub ahead of print]
"We know that smell sense is abnormal in the majority of people with Parkinson's and is at least as common as the tremor. It has previously been suggested that abnormal smell sense (hyposmia) does not worsen with progression of Parkinson's and therefore whilst a useful marker for Parkinson's overall, it might be less useful for monitoring disease. However, this study suggests that in the early stages of Parkinson's, deterioration in smell sense did correlate with disease severity - the movement symptoms, the other symptoms and the imaging. This is a useful finding and suggests that smell sense could possibly be used to monitor Parkinson's in the early stages"
Having experienced increasing hyposmia to an almost total extent for some years I have had fears that it may lead to a PD diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteRecent treatment for heart failure has almost completely restored sense of smell to a normal level in a few weeks. I am interested to know if there is any mileage in following this line of treatment in early PD.