Smell training, which improves our ability to identify odours, has been linked with improved cognitive abilities. Similarly, a declining sense of smell could even indicate mental deterioration.
SEED Lifespan’s Alex Bahar-Fuchs was recently featured on The Project discussing ‘Smell training’ and how it’s helping to ward off dementia. Alex Bahar-Fuchs is a neuropsychologist and senior lecturer at Deakin University. His research currently focuses on non-pharmacological interventions to prevent cognitive decline and dementia.
At a basic level smell training works by regularly exposing people to simple odours, like eucalyptus and citrus, and then asking them to remember and identify the different odours. The training can improve our ability to identify and remember odours, but also has been shows to increase visual memory.
Smell seems to be intricately linked with memory. A declining sense of smell can indicate mental deterioration. The majority of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease have lost some or all of their sense of smell. By increasing the ability to identify odours the researchers hope to improve cognitive abilities more broadly and prevent cognitive decline.
We hope that if we can train people’s sense of smell it can help them sustain their memory more broadly. Hopefully, reduce their risk of dementia. – Alex Bahar-Fuchs
Watch The Project’s: ‘Smell Training’: How It’s Helping Fight Dementia
Alex, featured on The House of Wellness, discusses if training people’s memory through the sense of smell, can help their memory overall.
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