Taste Disorders
Charles Theisler in Adjuvant Medical Care, 2023
Taste disorders have three broad descriptions. Hypogeusia is a reduced ability to taste things while dysgeusia is a distortion in taste sensation. A complete lack of taste is referred to as ageusia. The complaint of “loss of taste” is more often related to a loss of smell than to true impairment of taste. (See also Smell Perception.)1 Causes of hypogeusia can include nutritional deficiencies; upper respiratory tract and middle ear infections; radiation therapy (head and neck cancers); exposure to some chemicals; head injury; surgery to the ear, nose, and throat; poor oral hygiene; dental problems; and certain antibiotics and antihistamines.2 Illnesses such as chronic renal failure or stroke, idiopathic causes, and medicines such as phenytoin may also be responsible.3,4
Chemosensory Malingering
Alan R. Hirsch in Neurological Malingering, 2018
Ageusia and hypogeusia can be of three types: (1) global, that is, to all areas involving the entire tongue and palate—in which case all tastes and all areas are affected—a condition which occurs with some toxic exposures; (2) localized or a patchy loss, that is, involving discrete regions of the tongue and palate—as often occurs with head trauma and upper respiratory infections; and (3) unilateral, that is, usually associated with chorda tympani damage from otitis media. These losses can affect all taste modalities, just a specific taste, or combination of tastes.
The Special Sense Organs and Their Disorders
Walter F. Stanaszek, Mary J. Stanaszek, Robert J. Holt, Steven Strauss in Understanding Medical Terms, 2020
Loss of the sense of taste is termed ageusia, meaning "without gustation," while a lesser loss resulting in a blunting of the sense of taste is called hypogeusia. A gustatory hallucination is the perception of a taste that is not actually present.
Gustatory dysfunction in COVID-19 patients: a rapid systematic review on 27,687 cases
Published in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica, 2021
Nicola Cirillo, Maria Eleonora Bizzoca, Eleonora Lo Muzio, Angela Pia Cazzolla, Lorenzo Lo Muzio
Starting from December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread all over the world causing a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As at September 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has caused over one million deaths [1]. The virus mainly targets the respiratory system causing cough, fever, and difficulty in breathing [2]. Most cases result in mild symptoms, but some patients evolve to severe pneumonia and multi-organ failure. Among the most common symptoms (independent or in association with other manifestations), recent literature presents ageusia (loss of taste), with or without anosmia (loss of smell) [3]. Loss of taste is now a distinguishing symptoms of COVID-19 with a high predictive value [4]. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (EDCD) was one of the first public health agencies that include sudden onset of ageusia, dysgeusia or anosmia as main clinical criteria for identifying probable COVID-19 cases [5]. Anyway, until August 2020 these symptoms were not used by all clinical trials to identify COVID-19 cases and to prioritise diagnostic tests. Afterwards, in the USA, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have modified the definition of COVID-19 case on 5 August, including taste disorders as a main clinical criterion for diagnosis [6]. Soon after, the World Health Organisation (WHO) COVID-19 updated the case definition of COVID-19 and included onset of ageusia as suggestive of a probable COVID-19 case [7].
The Relationship between Malnutrition and Subjective Taste Change Experienced by Patients with Cancer Receiving Outpatient Chemotherapy Treatment
Published in Nutrition and Cancer, 2022
İlknur Özkan, Seçil Taylan, Nermin Eroğlu, Nurcan Kolaç
This scale was developed by Kano and Kanda (2013), and its Turkish validity and reliability study was carried out by Sözeri and Kutlutürkan (18). It has a 5-point Likert-type scale and consists of 18 items and four sub-dimensions (decrease in basic taste, discomfort, phantogeusia and parageusia, and general taste changes). The decrease in the sense of basic tastes sub-dimension evaluates the sense of salty, sour, bitter, sweet, and umami tastes by the individual. The discomfort sub-dimension evaluates the relationship between the changes in the sense of taste and changes in the sense of smell, nausea-vomiting, difficulty in eating hot/fatty food or meat, and anorexia. The phantogeusia and parageusia sub-dimension evaluates the status of individual’s experience of phantogeusia and parageusia. The general alterations of taste sub-dimension evaluates the individual’s experiences of ageusia, cacogeusia, and hypogeusia. Scores obtained from the sub-dimensions of the scale are calculated by summing up the items and dividing the total by the number of items. Minimum and maximum scores that can be obtained from the sub-dimensions are 1 and 5, respectively. Increased scores from the scale indicate increased severity of taste changes and discomfort (19). In the Turkish adaptation study of the scale, Cronbach’s alpha value was found as 0.869 (18). In the present study, it was determined as 0.851.
Age-dependent effects on infectivity and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection: results from nationwide contact tracing data in Greece
Published in Infectious Diseases, 2022
Angeliki Bistaraki, Sotirios Roussos, Sotirios Tsiodras, Vana Sypsa
The most frequently reported symptom was fever (58.6%); this was the most common symptom across all age groups (Figure 2). Anosmia and ageusia were reported by 16.3% and 15.4% of index cases, respectively (12.3% reported both of these symptoms) (Table 1). Dyspnoea was present in 3.6% of the cases. The prevalence of this symptom increased with age (from 1.4%–1.9% in 0–17 years old to 6.9% in 65 years or older) (Figure 2). The prevalence of any clinical symptom in index cases was lower among children 0–11 years old (53.5%) as compared to the other age groups (76.5%–80.4%). As some symptoms can be only subjectively reported, the prevalence of objectively observed symptoms – such as cough and fever – was evaluated and it was found lower among children 0–11 years old as compared to the other age groups (Figure 2).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Anosmia
- Burning Mouth Syndrome
- Dysgeusia
- Hypogeusia
- Taste
- Tongue
- Sense
- Sense of Smell
- Covid-19
- Thalamus