One thing I noticed a long time ago was that my mother's sense of smell was gone. I am always looking for ways to take better care of myself and of course to detect any symptoms of Alzheimer's in myself and other members of my family. By now you might guess that I will be paying close attention to my ability to detect odors.Dr. Robert S. Wilson told Reuters Health that difficulty identifying odors seems to be related the buildup of 'tangles' in the brain that appear early in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. “We found the correlation of difficulty identifying familiar odors with Alzheimer’s disease pathology even in people without dementia,” he added.
Source Reuters
An inability to correctly identify familiar odors may be an early indication of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers report.
Dr. Robert S. Wilson told Reuters Health that difficulty identifying odors seems to be related the buildup of 'tangles' in the brain that appear early in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. “We found the correlation of difficulty identifying familiar odors with Alzheimer’s disease pathology even in people without dementia,” he added.
As reported in the January issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, Wilson of Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, and colleagues performed brain autopsies on 129 elderly people who had died while participating in a memory and aging study.
The average age at time of death was 87.5 years. All of the subjects had undergone a standard 12-item Brief Smell Identification Test and had achieved correct scores ranging from 0 to 12.
After allowing for factors such as age and sex, the researchers determined that the density of tangles in the brain increased as correct smell scores went down.
“The results imply that trouble identifying familiar odors is a very early sign of Alzheimer’s disease,” concluded Wilson, “and that olfactory testing may be helpful in early identification of affected people.”
Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
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Bob DeMarco is an Alzheimer's caregiver and editor of the Alzheimer's Reading Room. The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one website on the Internet for advice and insight into Alzheimer's disease. Bob taught at the University of Georgia, was an executive at Bear Stearns, the CEO of IP Group, and is a mentor. He has written more than 700 articles with more than 18,000 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.
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