Smell identification test results from Alzheimer’s disease patients, MMCI patients and healthy elderly subjects were analyzed to select an optimal subset of fragrances that distinguished Alzheimer’s and MMCI patients who developed the disease from healthy subjects and MMCI patients who did not develop Alzheimer’s. Results of the 10-smell test, which can be administered in five to eight minutes, were analyzed in Dr. Devanand’s study which evaluated 150 patients with MMCI every six months and 63 healthy elderly subjects annually, with average follow-up duration of five years.
“Narrowing the list of odors can potentially expedite screening and help with early diagnosis,” says Dr. Devanand, who added that pathological studies of brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease show that the nerve pathways involved in perceiving and recognizing odors are affected at a very early stage.
Text for this article comes from a ACN press release.