Blindness or deafness are the sensory disabilities best known to the general public. But there is another:anosmia. A recent study looked at the difficulties faced by people affected by this disorder.
Imagine, overnight, being unable to smell the slightest odor when entering a bakery, walking through the aisles of a market, or simply cooking your dish favorite. Without smells, many of life's little pleasures vanish, never to return. But not only. Not being able to smell the slightest scent can also put you in danger and cut you off from the world. This sensory loss is anosmia .
Multiple causes, anosmia affects approximately 5% of the population , but still remains largely unknown to the general public. This is why many people affected generally lack support, which has the effect of further deepening the discomfort felt.
A recent study published in the journal Clinical Otolaryngology is one of the first to highlight the difficulties encountered by those people who cannot sense the world around them. A way for researchers to target their needs in order to better support them .
For this study, the researchers collaborated with Fifth Sense , an English organization that accompanies people suffering from smell and taste disorders on a daily basis, as well as with the Smell and Taste clinic , James Paget University Hospital (England). Written testimonials from 71 patients who regularly attend the specialized clinic were collected. In the end, several important points emerged.
On the one hand, almost all the patients explained that they generally feel sad on a daily basis . For Carl Philpott, doctor at the clinic and researcher at the University of East Anglia, UK, this could be explained by an inability to link smells to happy memories . “Smells connect us to people, places and emotional experiences , he said. People who have lost their sense of smell miss out on all those memories that smell can evoke” .
Indeed, our olfactory system has a special relationship with our memory insofar as the sense of smell is the only one of our senses that does not pass through the thalamus before reaching the forebrain. In addition, remember that our olfactory bulb has a high density of connections near our hippocampus, which participate in the formation of memory.
That's why the simple smell of roast chicken can remind you of good Sundays with the family, just as the smell of grease can take you back to your teenage years, when you were riding your first scooter. These memories most often make us happy. If you no longer have access to it, you have de facto less access to happiness.
During this study, many also expressed discomfort with constantly needing to ask those around them for help, when others lamented having lost the pleasure of cooking, and even eating .
Indeed, the loss of smell is inevitably accompanied by a loss of taste. We all experience this when we develop a cold, but this loss of feeling is temporary. For people with anosmia, it is permanent, which profoundly affects the quality of life and sometimes leads to the risk of eating disorders .
During this study many came back to the disastrous consequences that can result from their inability to recognize danger signs , like the smell of a gas leak.
To return to this example, remember that domestic gas is naturally painless. But given the danger it represents for humans (risk of explosion or asphyxiation), an odor is systematically added to it in order to recognize these potential risks. Without smell, our warning signals are therefore much less reactive.
Finally, it also seems that many are worried about their body odor . Asked by Gizmodo , Riley MacLeod, editor of Kotaku, recently spoke on the subject.
“Personal hygiene is a big struggle , he explained. As someone born without a sense of smell, I have this vague understanding that, for example, you have to change your clothes or you smell bad when you sweat , but I don't really know what that means. Finally my smell is kind of this invisible problem that I have to deal with, but which, for me, is not really real .
He also concedes, not without humour, the few advantages authorized by his condition. “I'm really helpful in taking out the stinky trash cans. I also spent several years working as a dog walker because I don't mind poop smells! .
This research, while providing no cure for anosmia, shows us why it is important for others, especially physicians, to understand the plight of these people. Many patients in the study said they felt frustrated by the dismissive attitude sometimes encountered in some practices.
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