Odd Symptom Is Early Alzheimer's Clue

What's that smell? If you can't identify common, familiar odors, it could be an early indication of the beginning of Alzheimer's disease, reports Reuters Health of new research from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.


Lead study author Dr. Robert S. Wilson explained to Reuters Health that difficulty identifying odors seems to be related to the build-up of "tangles" in the brain that appear in the early stages of Alzheimer's- -long before dementia develops.


The study: Wilson's team performed brain autopsies on 129 elderly men and women who died while participating in a study on memory and aging. The average age at death was 87.5 years. Each of them had taken a standard Brief Smell Identification Test in which they are asked to identify 12 common odors. The range of correct scores for the group was 0 to 12.



The results: As the correct smell scores dropped, the density of the brain tangles increased. "The results imply that trouble identifying familiar odors is a very early sign of Alzheimer's disease," Wilson told Reuters Health, "and that olfactory testing may be helpful in early identification of affected people." The study findings were published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.


http://www.wmconnec t.com/whatsnew/ package.jsp? name=fte/ firstsign/ firstsign&floc=wn-wx