Smell and Dementia

Abstract

In recent years, the number of elderly people in Japan is increasing. As a result, the number of patients with dementia are also increasing rapidly. Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular dementia, Dementia with Lewy bodies and Frontotemporal dementia accounts for approximately 90% of overall dementia. Therefore, they are regarded as four major dementia. Many kinds of dementia have olfactory dysfunction because pathological changes occurs in the sense of smell-related domain. However, most of patients don’t complain for olfactory dysfunction. The reason is because progression is generally slow. As a result, patients are not awareness. In addition, early detection is extremely difficult because patients have cognitive disorders. However, the olfactory nerve system has ability to regenerate and can stimulate cerebral limbic system directly. We expect that early intervention for olfactory dysfunction can improve cognitive function and prevent the progress of dementia.