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Elsevier, Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, 7(15), p. 490-494

DOI: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2008.12.005

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Prevalence of smell loss in Parkinson's disease - A multicenter study

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

Previous data on the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease (PD) range from 45% to 90%. The present multicenter study aimed to provide data on the prevalence of smell loss in a large sample of PD patients from three independent populations. Olfactory sensitivity was tested in 400 patients from Australia, Germany, and The Netherlands by means of a psychophysical olfactory test, the “Sniffin' Sticks”, which is comprised of 3 subtests of olfactory function. Out of the total number of patients 45.0% presented as functionally anosmic, 51.7% were hyposmic, whereas only 3.3% were normosmic. This indicates that 96.7% of PD patients present with significant olfactory loss when compared to young normosmic subjects. This figure falls to 74.5%, however, when adjusted to age-related norms. Thus, olfactory dysfunction should be considered as a reliable marker of the disease.