Objective: To describe the association between different Parkinson’s disease (PD) related non-motor symptoms (NMS) and hyposmia in a population-based cohort.

Background: Olfactory dysfunction is of high interest for population-based research in PD risk and prodromal PD, because of the feasibility of its assessment and its relatively high predictive value for incident PD (4-5-fold increased risk). The University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) is a test, which can be done remotely and therefore has the potential to be applied to a large population sample. However, little is known about the association between other non-motor symptoms with olfactory dysfunction in individuals of the general population.

Method: Participants completed an online questionnaire, including the Non-Motor Symptoms Questionnaire (NMSQ), and an UPSIT at home. UPSITs were send to all participants of the online questionnaire. Hyposmia was defined by an UPSIT <10^th percentile adjusted for age and sex. All NMSQ questions were separately analyzed for significance using the Chi²-test (p < 0.05 significance level).

Results: In total 1274 participants from the Innsbruck Healthy Brain Aging (HeBA)-Study side were analyzed (median age 61.7; 59.3% females). Participants reporting loss or change in smell or taste (37.9% vs 19.9%; hyposmia vs normosmia), memory issues (24.6% vs 19.5%), concentration difficulties (26.2% vs 19.6%), swollen legs (27.2% vs 20.4%), and excessive sweating (29.9% vs 19.1%) were significantly more likely to exhibit hyposmia. A sense of urgency to pass urine (16.9% vs 22.9%), nocturia (19.1% vs 23.9%), and falls (4.4% vs 21.7%) were associated with less frequent hyposmia. All other NMSQ items were not associated with smell performance. However, female sex and younger age were associated with lower percentiles and thus, higher frequency of hyposmia.

Conclusion: Presence of a few NMS were associated with olfactory dysfunction, with the largest difference found for subjective loss in taste or smell and memory / concentration complaints. The observed negative associations of hyposmia with other NMS and with younger age and female sex may be related to strict age- and sex adjustments in a relatively young population sample.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/association-between-non-motor-parkinsons-disease-symptoms-and-hyposmia-in-a-population-based-cohort/