Impaired Odor Identification of Culturally Familiar Odorants Associated with Dementia in South Korean Older Adults

Sun Mi Kim, Hye Ri Kim, Hyun Jin Min, Kyung Soo Kim, Hyuk Ga, Sang Hoon Lee and Doug Hyun Han
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Sun Mi Kim: Department of Psychiatry, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul 06974, Korea
Hye Ri Kim: Department of Psychiatry, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul 06974, Korea
Hyun Jin Min: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul 06974, Korea
Kyung Soo Kim: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul 06974, Korea
Hyuk Ga: Department of Family Medicine, Institute of Geriatric Medicine, Incheon Eun-Hye Hospital, Incheon 22711, Korea
Sang Hoon Lee: Department of Psychiatry, Eun-Hye Hospital, Incheon 22711, Korea
Doug Hyun Han: Department of Psychiatry, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul 06974, Korea

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 22, 1-9

Abstract: Among olfactory functions, odor identification is the most studied predictor of dementia. We aimed to verify whether patients with dementia are less aware of specific odors than cognitively normal individuals using an odor identification test, which includes odorants that are culturally familiar to South Koreans. We divided 139 older adults aged 57–79 years into the dementia and normal cognition groups. Odor identification function was assessed in all participants. We conducted hierarchical logistic regression analyses with the diagnosis of dementia as a dependent variable and three demographic characteristics, as well as 12 odor identification items, as independent variables. Impaired odor identification for herbal medicine (odds ratio (OR) = 9.420; p = 0.012) and Korean grilled meat (OR = 5.361; p = 0.019) and older age (OR = 1.176; p = 0.005) were significant predictors of dementia. Impaired odor identification of culturally familiar odorants was associated with dementia risk. This may be explained by the fact that compared with culturally non-specific universal odorants, familiar odorants are more related to episodic memory, which is impaired in the early stages of dementia. Thus, an optimal combination of odor identification items should be used for screening individuals with cognitive decline requiring further neurocognitive function tests.

Keywords: neurocognitive disorders; odor identification; olfaction; clinical marker; Alzheimer’s disease (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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