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By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, December 1, 2020 (HealthDay News) – Special training can help COVID-19 patients regain their sense of smell after suffering from parosmia, suggests a new British study.
Parosmia is a condition where people have strange and often unpleasant odor distortions. Instead of smelling a lemon, for example, you might smell rotting cabbage or chocolate might smell like gasoline. Parosmia has been linked to COVID-19 and other viruses and head injuries.
“Some degree of smell loss is thought to affect up to a quarter of the general population,” said researcher Carl Philpott, of Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia.
“Loss of smell is also a major symptom of COVID-19, and we know the pandemic is leaving many people with long-term loss of smell, or distortions of smell such as parosmia,” he said in a statement. university press.
Smell training involves smelling at least four different smells twice a day every day for several months.
“It aims to help recovery based on neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to reorganize itself to compensate for a change or injury,” Philpott said.
The researchers worked with more than 140 people who had lost or had changes in their sense of smell.
Patients in the study received a variety of smell kits, including different smells, such as eucalyptus, lemon, rose, cinnamon, chocolate, coffee, lavender, honey, strawberry and thyme.
“We found that the presence of parosmia and worse olfactory performance on odor identification and discrimination tests was associated with clinically meaningful recovery of olfactory function for people suffering from post-viral smell disorders,” Philpott said. “This means that training in the sense of smell can help the olfactory pathways begin to regenerate and recover.”
The researchers also found that older people were more likely to start regaining their sense of smell. Furthermore, the greatest improvements were seen among those who had lost most of their olfactory function.
The research was conducted before the pandemic, but researchers believe their findings could help people who have lost their sense of smell due to COVID-19.
The report was recently published online in the journal The laryngoscope.
More information
For more information on loss of smell, go to the US National Institutes of Health.
SOURCE: University of East Anglia, press release, November 28, 2020
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