Tremblay C, et al. - The clinicians aimed to assess the olfactory and trigeminal sensitivity and perception in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Furthermore, they compared them to participants with non-parkinsonian olfactory dysfunction (NPOD) and to healthy controls. In PD patients, the trigeminal system did not appear to be impaired even in the presence of olfactory dysfunction (OD). Hence, measuring trigeminal sensitivity could allow the differentiation of PD-related OD from other forms of OD.

• Using “Sniffin’ Sticks test”, the clinicians evaluated olfactory function and trigeminal function with the localization task in 28 PD patients, 27 healthy controls and 21 patients with OD unrelated to PD.

• Compared to NPOD patients, PD patients showed significantly higher trigeminal sensitivity (p = 0.002) and performed similarly to healthy controls.
• On the other hand, PD and NPOD patients had both similar olfactory scores, significantly below healthy controls.