Early Sign of Alzheimer's Disease - Decreased Sense of Smell?

A decrease in sense of smell can be caused by various reasons, including aging and viral infection. But lately, studies have shown that decreased sense of smell can also be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease.

Research shows that the olfactory system, a sensory system used for smell, can get damaged due to Alzheimer's disease--specifically targeting the entorhinal cortex. It was found that the entorhinal cortex is associated in pairing odors with proper memories.

Fortunately, there is one easy way and also the cheapest way to diagnose early stage of Alzheimer's disease. We call this the 'peanut butter test'. Peanut butter is a readily available pure odorant that can only be detected by the olfactory system.

## Here's what you need to do:

1. Prepare one tablespoon of peanut butter and a metric ruler.

2. Have the patient sit down and have his or her eyes and mouth closed.

3. Have the patient block one of their nostrils and hold the ruler next the opened nostril.

4. Using the ruler, measure the distance at which the patient can detect the odor of peanut butter (when measuring, try to move the peanut butter up the ruler 1 cm at a time).

5. Record the measurement and wait for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

6. Repeat the same procedure on the other nostril.

Surprisingly, experiments show that patients who have early stage of Alzheimer's disease demonstrated significant difference in detecting the peanut butter's smell between their left and right nostril. It's either the left nostril or right nostril's sense of smell is severely impaired and does not detect the peanut butter's odor until it is brought much closer to the nose.

In other words, one of their nostrils will smell it fine but not with their other nostril.

It's worth noting that other types of impairments like dementia did not show this much disparity, and is only applicable on Alzheimer's disease so far.

In conclusion, if the patient is not yet subjected to actual diagnosis, checking the patient's sense of smell by doing this peanut butter test can help you detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease.