Researchers have found that suffering even a minor concussion can lead to loss of sense of smell.
It's long been known that people who suffer a major concussion can lose their sense of smell temporarily and also develop effective problems, such as anxiety and depression. Now, as part of the latest study, scientists have found that's true even for people who get a minor concussion.
In a study published in Brain Injury, a team of researchers compared 20 hospital patients who had mild concussions to 22 who'd broken limbs but had no concussion.
"A lot of people suffer a mild concussion at some point in their life, so realising they have trouble smelling is the first step to telling their doctor about it," said study lead author Fanny Lecuyer Giguere from the University of Montreal in Canada.
"It's important that patients report any loss of smell because it's not something their general practitioners normally ask about," she said.
To test their capacity to identify smells, the researchers visited hospital patients in the alpine ski resort of Visp, Switzerland between December 2016 and February 2017. They were asked to identify the synthetic odour of roses, garlic, cloves and more. A year later, the patients were sent a follow-up questionnaire.
By comparing the two groups of patients' results on the day following their injury and 12 months later, the researchers were able to determine that most who had lost their sense of smell gained it back within six months of their accident.
What did not significantly diminish, however, were their symptoms of anxiety. About 65 percent of the concussed patients reported such symptoms, researchers said.
