Re: Smell Test to determine Lewy bodies?

[Guest guest]

Hi, ,

This is so interesting. My dad lost his sense of smell many years before we

knew about the LBD. The doctors never thought much about it. I am going to

give all the members of my family a smell test immediately! Thank you for

sharing all this great information with us.

Hugs,

Piper

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

[Guest guest]

Amazing! My Mom lost her sense of smell about 20 years ago. , how

do you find these things?!

" "

<octoryrose@yahoo

.com> To

Sent by: LBDcaregivers

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Subject

Smell Test to

06/08/2007 07:11 determine Lewy bodies?

AM

Please respond to

LBDcaregivers@yah

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Alpha-synuclein pathology in the olfactory pathways of dementia

patients

2007

Lewy-type pathology is a characteristic of a number of

neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease and

dementia with Lewy bodies. Thus far, the definitive diagnosis of

these dementias can only be confirmed at post-mortem. However, it is

known that the loss of smell (anosmia) is an early symptom in

patients who develop dementia, and the use of the smell test has been

proposed as an early diagnostic procedure. The aim of this study was

to understand further the extent of Lewy pathology in the olfactory

system of patients with neurodegenerative disorders. Post-mortem

tissue from 250 subjects was obtained from the OPTIMA brain bank.

Five areas of the olfactory pathway were examined by immunolabelling

for alpha-synuclein – a major component of Lewy pathology: the

olfactory tract/bulb (n = 79), the anterior olfactory nucleus in the

lateral olfactory gyrus (n = 193), the region of olfactory projection

to the orbito-frontal cortex (n = 225), the hippocampus (n = 236) and

the amygdala (n = 201). Results show that Lewy pathology affects

different parts of the olfactory pathways differentially, suggesting

a specific pattern of development of pathology. Clinical Parkinson's

disease is most likely to be identified if the orbito-frontal cortex

is affected, while the diagnosis is less likely if the pathology is

restricted to the olfactory bulb or tract. These results suggest that

pathology in the olfactory bulb and tract occurs prior to clinical

signs of Parkinson's disease. Furthermore, the results presented here

provide further evidence supporting the possible value of a smell

test to aid the clinical diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases.

Source:

http://tinyurl.com/2efkhe

[Guest guest]

My Mother also lost her sense of smell several years before she showed

any signs of dementia. Her internist had no clue as to why had lost her

sense of smell. It was only later when she developed LBD that we learned

that this can be one of the early signs.

Regards,

Ronnie Genser

[Guest guest]

<snip> , how do you find these things?! <snip> I fell upon a

link that searches Medical journals -- every couple of days I

search " Lewy " and post what is found. It's the OCD in me -- yet, at

least it benefits y'all.

[Guest guest]

wrote:

>

> ... However, it is

> known that the loss of smell (anosmia) is an early symptom in

> patients who develop dementia.

My dad also lost his sense of smell, long before he had any

symptoms of dementia - probably five or six years before I

noticed any problems. I assumed it was a virus.

Best regards,

Ann

[Guest guest]

PS -- there are a couple other links from the links file that also

talk about the loss of smell:

Anosmia in dementia is associated with Lewy bodies rather than

Alzheimer's pathology

January 11, 2001

CONCLUSION: Dementia with Lewy bodies is associated with impaired

odour detection. Misdiagnosis may have accounted for some previous

reports of impaired odour detection in Alzheimer's disease. Simple

but more sensitive tests of anosmia are required if they are to be

clinically useful in identifying patients with dementia with Lewy

bodies.

http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/70/6/739

And...

Anosmia is very common in the Lewy body variant of Alzheimer's

disease.

October 2005

CONCLUSIONS: Anosmia is very common in LBV. Adding anosmia as a core

feature improved sensitivity for detecting LBV, but did not improve

discrimination between Alzheimer's disease and LBV owing to a

concomitant increase in false positives.

http://tinyurl.com/382rdt

[Guest guest]

My mother too, with loss of taste sensation as well. Just another sign of

" aging " I

suspected at the time. She also ended up in nh with an obvious sweet tooth

which had

evolved through the years with lesseed taste/smell sensation.

, Oakville Ont.

Mother, age 92, died Aug. 12/06 after 13 year decline from PDD

>

> My Mother also lost her sense of smell several years before she showed

> any signs of dementia. Her internist had no clue as to why had lost her

> sense of smell. It was only later when she developed LBD that we learned

> that this can be one of the early signs.

>

> Regards,

> Ronnie Genser

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

When my husband was in a medicine study for the drug

Alzhemed (which by the way is showing great promise

for AD), the doctor asked me what was the first thing

I thought might have been an indication. I told him

it probably seemed odd, but I wondered if it was loss

of sense of smell. He said that had just started to

be considered and that they were now using " smell "

tests to help determine AD. I remember one of the

scents was cinnamon, but I don't remember what else he

said. His loss of SOS was many years before we had

any indication of anything else going on. We tried

zinc tablets at the time, but they didn't help. I

always laid his onto severe sinus problems and

possibly the use of nose sprays for many years.

--- ppark4915@... wrote:

> Hi, ,

>

> This is so interesting. My dad lost his sense of

> smell many years before we

> knew about the LBD. The doctors never thought much

> about it. I am going to

> give all the members of my family a smell test

> immediately! Thank you for

> sharing all this great information with us.

>

> Hugs,

>

> Piper

>

>

>

> ************************************** See what's

> free at http://www.aol.com.

>

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been

> removed]

>

>

________________________________________________________________________________\

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[Guest guest]

<snip> Wouldn't that be interesting if this is one of the beginning

signs of AD or LBD. Just curious to know if it happened to everyone of

our loved ones or not. <snip>

Just added this question to the polls section:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/LBDcaregivers/polls