Olfactory Function and Age: a Sniffin’ Sticks Extended Test Study Performed in Sardinia

Abstract

Introduction Several studies evaluated the influence of cultural\ud components on the Sniffin’ Sticks Identification Test in\ud different countries. The aim of this study was to analyze the\ud olfactory function in a large sample of healthy subjects living\ud in Sardinia, an island known for its historic genetic isolation,\ud in relation to different age ranges to provide new data in\ud healthy Sardinian subjects.\ud Methods Olfactory perception of 161 participants (108 females\ud and 53 males; age range 19–78 years) was assessed\ud through three different parameters: odor detection threshold,\ud discrimination, and identification by means of the\ud Sniffin’Sticks Extended test (SST).\ud Results Our results show that young adults were generally\ud normosmic, while in subjects over 55, a statistically significant\ud age-related decrease of all the parameters was observed.\ud Regarding odor identification task, a few, such as leather, apples,\ud lemons, cloves, and pineapples, were frequently\ud incorrectly identified by participants probably due to the similarities\ud between the odors and distractors.\ud Conclusion and Implications Our data provide a comprehensive\ud evaluation of the three olfactory components in the\ud Sardinian population and confirm a decrease in the odor detection\ud threshold, discrimination and identification as well as\ud in the global TDI score in subjects over 55 years of age. These\ud results may be useful in providing normative values for routine\ud clinical use of the SSET in Sardinian subjects

Effect of Olfactory and Gustatory Dysfunction and Motor Symptoms on Body Weight in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

“…Generally, as reported in previous studies [4][5][6]16,17,34] PD patients showed increased levels of apathy, fatigue and depression and exhibited impaired olfactory and gustatory function, compared to controls. Furthermore, despite weight gain or weight loss observed in relation to the stage of the disease [8,9], the mechanism of this change in PD remains still controversial.…”

“…Olfactory function was evaluated using the Sniffin Sticks test (Burghart Messtechnik, Wedel, Germany) that considers three olfactory tasks, odor threshold (OT), odor discrimination (OD), and odor identification (OI) [16,[28][29][30][31]. Participants were instructed to drink only water 1 h before the experiment, and to avoid smoking and scented products on the testing day.…”

“…Participants were instructed to drink only water 1 h before the experiment, and to avoid smoking and scented products on the testing day. Sniffin Sticks are pen-like odor-dispensing devices and the complete procedure lasted 30-40 min [16,29]. Each pen (length of 14 cm and an inner diameter of 1.3 cm) was positioned at approximately 2 cm in front of both participants' nostrils for a few seconds.…”

“…First, OT was determined using n-butanol with 16 stepwise dilutions [30]. OT was evaluated using a three-alternative forced-choice task (3AFC) and the single-staircase technique [16,28,29,31]. Scores of OT ranged from 16 (participants who were able to detect the lowest concentration of n-butanol) to 1 (participants who were unable to detect the highest concentration).…”

“…">PatientsWe evaluated 112 participants (57 men and 55 women) in this study, 63 PD patients (mean age ± SD, 69.2 ± 10.1) and 49 healthy controls (mean age ± SD, 68 ± 9.6). In this study, 12 patients from our previous studies [16,17] were enrolled. Data collection started from September 2018 to October 2019 and further participants were recruited at the Movement Disorders Center of the University of Cagliari during regular out-patient follow-up examination.…”