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Smell Perception/Anosmia/Parosmia
Published in Charles Theisler, Adjuvant Medical Care, 2023
Anosmia is the complete loss of smell. Nasal congestion is a common cause of temporary anosmia. Loss of smell from nasal polyps, sinusitis, upper respiratory tract infection, or fractures is due to intranasal swelling or other obstruction that prevents odors from gaining access to the olfactory area. Neurologic causes include head trauma and viral infections, as well as aging or Alzheimer's. A number of other conditions can cause anosmia as well. Parosmia, or dysosmia, describes a distortion or perversion of the sense of smell. What typically happens is that natural and pleasant odors are perceived as offensive and disgusting. Additional causes can include Alzheimer's, Huntington's, or Parkinson's, and olfactory damage from head injury, bacterial or viral infection, toxic chemicals, radiation, or chemotherapy, etc. Neurologists have used sodium valproate, gabapentin, and pregabalin to treat parosmia for decades with good results.1
Morphology, Pathogenesis, Genome Organization, and Replication of Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Published in Hanadi Talal Ahmedah, Muhammad Riaz, Sagheer Ahmed, Marius Alexandru Moga, The Covid-19 Pandemic, 2023
Sadia Javed, Bahzad Ahmad Farhan, Maria Shabbir, Areeba Tahseen, Hanadi Talal Ahmedah, Marius Moga
As a result, the interval between diagnosis and death varies from 6 to 40 days, with an average range of 14 days [21]. The length is determined by a number of factors, including age and health, and is lower for infection above the age of 70 who have comorbidities [21]. The type of the disease differs from the symptoms. Cough, fever, and difficulty breathing are more frequent than people with milder illnesses (non-hospitable patients) among persons who are diagnosed with COVID-19. There are common symptoms of fever and respiratory infection in aged persons and infected persons with the exposure to COVID-19 [22]. Tiredness, nausea, and myalgia are one of the most usual recorded signs in non-hospitalized patients, and stiff neck and nasal inflammation, or nasal congestion (rhinorrhea), are therefore common. Gastrointestinal (GI) discomfort such as fever, vomit, or diarrhea may appear prior to the onset of an initial illness and lower respiratory problems. COVID-19 has also been linked to a lack of scent (anosmia) or flavor (ageusia) even before the appearance of respiratory problems, particularly in young females and intermediate-aged infected patients who do not require hospitalization [23, 24]. However, certain signs of COVID-19 are characteristic of other respiratory and viral diseases; COVID-19 anosmia appears to be more severe [23]. The common signs of COVID-19 disease in children differ by age difference and are generally slower in adulthood, according to several studies [24, 25].
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19
Published in Patricia G. Melloy, Viruses and Society, 2023
Researchers have found that if a person has a mild cold-like illness, it may take up to two weeks to recover, but if the illness is more severe, recovery could take six weeks or longer (Bar-On et al. 2020). The symptoms of temporary loss of smell and taste help set COVID-19 apart from the common cold in many cases. It was reported in fall 2020 that up to 80% of COVID-19 patients suffer from anosmia (Whelan 2020). Other related symptoms affecting the nervous system include parosmia, where things smell differently than expected or as they should, and “brain fog,” where people experience a sense of confusion or loss of concentration. Researchers are trying to figure out what is responsible for the loss of smell and have zeroed in on a type of “support cell” around the olfactory neurons known as sustentacular cells. When the virus affects these support cells, inflammation ensues, and then the olfactory neurons themselves are damaged. As the olfactory neurons regenerate, parosmia may result as the neuronal pathways are restructured (Whelan 2020).
Spontaneous recovery of anosmia after 2.5 years in a young COVID-19 patient
Published in European Clinical Respiratory Journal, 2023
Erfan Ghadirzadeh, Lotfollah Davoodi, Fatemeh Khazaei, Amirmasoud Taheri
To the Editor: It has been 3 years since the world was confronted with a new challenge: coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1]. COVID-19 typically manifests with respiratory symptoms, such as dry cough and dyspnea; however, it is not unusual for other organ signs and symptoms to appear [2]. A 2020 meta-analysis found that 53% of COVID-19 patients suffer from taste and smell impairments [3]. Anosmia, the loss of the sense of smell, is one of them and is regarded both as a symptom and as a complication of COVID-19, which may remain even after the patient is no longer infected [3]. Sixty to seventy percent of patients recover from this disorder within 4 weeks after having COVID-19, either entirely or partially [2]. Seventy-eight percent of patients recover their sense of smell entirely after 2 months, while 95% do so after 6 months [2,3]. Nonetheless, some people may endure anosmia for more than a year. These patients undergo numerous diagnostic and therapeutic procedures but do not heal completely [4]. Several therapy approaches might be pursued when anosmia persists for longer than 2 weeks [4]. Current options for treatment include intranasal corticosteroids, sodium citrate, and olfactory exercises [2]. Some patients do not respond to these treatments and have permanent olfactory loss. These patients may be candidates for other experimental therapies, such as stem cell therapy [2].
Potential neurological manifestations of COVID-19: a narrative review
Published in Postgraduate Medicine, 2022
Joseph V. Pergolizzi, Robert B. Raffa, Giustino Varrassi, Peter Magnusson, Jo Ann LeQuang, Antonella Paladini, Robert Taylor, Charles Wollmuth, Frank Breve, Maninder Chopra, Rohit Nalamasu, Paul J. Christo
Neurological sequelae of SARS have been only sporadically reported. Acute olfactory neuropathy has been reported in a case study of a 27-year-old female SARS patient who was diagnosed with SARS in 2003, hospitalized, and recovered with combination therapy of antiviral therapy (ribivarin plus steroids) [43]. Fever persisted for about three weeks from onset of symptoms. She was discharged from the hospital at around the same time she reported the paroxysmal bilateral loss of her sense of smell. An otolaryngologic examination, biochemistry tests, and subsequent magnetic resonance imaging scans showed nothing unusual with no lesions that might account for her loss of olfaction. Now 2 years after her recovery from SARS, she still has not regained her sense of smell [43]. The common causes of anosmia include structural defects in the nasal cavity or sinuses, head injury, brain trauma, brain lesions, or drug-induced loss of olfaction, and in her case, these could all be ruled out. It was postulated that her anosmia was a coronavirus-induced form of olfactory neuropathy [43].
Anosmia in COVID-19: What Care Providers Need to Know
Published in Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2021
A familiar image during the past year is a patient with COVID-19 on a ventilator in an intensive care unit, cared for by nurses swathed in protective equipment. Becoming more familiar now is the image of the “long hauler,” no longer an inpatient but struggling with COVID’s residuals weeks or months after the initial infection (Siegelman, 2020). Among the troubling residual symptoms reported by survivors is anosmia: loss of the sense of smell. In contrast to studies of the past, in which smell was ranked as the least important sense, and less valuable to some people than their technological devices (Jarvis, 2021), the COVID survivors who cannot smell are finding it profoundly dismaying, disorienting, and disruptive. It can even be life-threatening, as evidenced by the story of a family whose members had lost their sense of smell because of COVID and escaped their burning house only because one uninfected child smelled the smoke (Jarvis, 2021).