Objective: This study investigates smell and taste function in patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD).

Background: Up to 90% of patients with PD suffer from olfactory dysfunction. During our routine care in neurorehabilitation a number of PD patients had reported that they also perceived an impaired sense of taste. Thus, we wanted to find out if this perception is due to their olfactory dysfunction or if it is indeed a discrete disorder. 

Methods: 68 patients (m: 59%; f:41%) were tested with the Sniffin‘ Sticks 12 (containing 12 sticks with everyday smells) and the Taste Strips Test (16 filter papers impregnated with four concentrations of sweet, sour, salty and bitter) during routine care of in-patient neurorehabilitation. 
Inclusion criteria: all patients during in-patient neurorehabilitation between Jan. and June 2016 with ICD-10 diagnosis code G20 (PD) who were cognitively able to participate in taste and smell screening.
Exclusion criteria: additional cerebral disease (e.g. stroke, tumour, head trauma), diabetes mellitus, dementia (MMSE≤24).
Thus, 4 patients with diabetes mellitus, 2 with additional cerebral diseases and 3 with both confounding problems were excluded from analysis.  
 

Results: The results of 59 patients (m:57%, f:43%) are reported. In total we found impaired olfaction in 93% of our sample (59% hyposmia, 34% anosmia) and 35% impaired gustation (32% hyogeusia, 2% ageusia). 
The 4 patients (=7%) with normosmia all had unimpaired taste function. 
Of the 35 patients (=59%) with hyposmia, 26 had unimpaired taste function, 8 patients presented with hypogeusia and 1 with ageusia. 
Of the 20 patients (=35%) with anosmia 9 patients had unimpaired taste function and 11 hypogeusia. 
Furthermore, we observed in this sample that “bitter” was most often correctly identified and “sour” least often. 
 

Conclusions: In addition to the impaired sense of smell in 93% of our patient sample we found that 35% of these patients also had an impaired sense of taste, which has an additional impact to their everyday life. 
Due to the small sample of patients per group we conducted no further analysis in terms of age, gender or type of PD.
We intend to conduct a follow up study with age and sex matched healthy controls to find out whether these results are specific to PD or whether they might in part be due to normal aging processes. 
 

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/olfaction-and-gustation-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/