TITLE
Why Covid-19 Patients Are Suffering From Distorted and Phantom Smells
DESCRIPTION
One of the strangest problems of Covid-19 is the loss of the smell sense (anosmia) or worse a distorted repulsive sense of smell. “Of more than 4,000 respondents to a multilingual, international study of people with recent smell loss published in Chemical Senses in June, 7 percent reported parosmia, or odor distortion. Facebook support groups dedicated to parosmia and phantosmia, the clinical names for specific smell disorders, have grown drastically in the past few months. Instead of a scentless world, an increasing number of people who lost their sense of smell because of Covid-19 are complaining that things just don’t smell right.”
Additionally many people who have tested positive for Covid also have lost their sense of smell. “Smell loss, or anosmia, is such a prevalent symptom of Covid-19 it can be used for diagnosis. A May study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found 86 percent of the Covid-positive patients experienced smell loss. Most people who suffer from sudden onset anosmia from the SARS-CoV-2 infection recover their smell quickly, within four weeks for 89 percent of those in a recent study in JAMA Otolaryngology. But the remaining 10 percent continued to experience smell loss or distortions.”
The article provides details regarding both the normal function of the olfactory mechanism and further delineates the damage caused by Covid and other viruses.
This is a fascinating article to read and use in class when studying sensation and perception.
SOURCE
smithsonianmag.com, September 21, 2020, by Stephanie Feuer
LINK TO RESOURCE
(Tiny URL) https://tinyurl.com/y5pkylq6
CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
•How does the olfactory sensory system function under “normal” circumstances?
•Discuss the terms: anosmia, parosmia, phantomosmia.
•Psychologists study Sensation & Perception as part of the basic understanding of everyday functioning. How has the Covid-19 virus affected the olfactory sense? What are the chief complaints?
•What are the odors that can cause phantomosmia?
•Are these problems “curable”?
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