School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations

Diminished Smell in a Teenage Girl

Poster Number

242

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

3-2016

Abstract

Disorders of smell are rare, particularly in pediatric patients. The most common cause of transient anosmia is nasal obstruction associated with upper respiratory infections. Moreover, nasal polyps, nasal and nasopharyngeal tumors, and enlarged adenoids can cause obstruction of the nasal air circulation and thereby diminish the sense of smell.

Anosmia can often be difficult to confirm, particularly if a pediatric patient has true anosmia. Many children with olfactory dysfunction may not recognize their deficits, or often pretend to smell to please their parents, or prevaricate to attract attention. Moreover, long, complex olfactory tests are impractical owing to the short attention span of some young children, and are further limited because odor concepts require experience with odors that some children have yet to come across.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Open Access

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Presented at: GW Research Days 2016

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Diminished Smell in a Teenage Girl

Disorders of smell are rare, particularly in pediatric patients. The most common cause of transient anosmia is nasal obstruction associated with upper respiratory infections. Moreover, nasal polyps, nasal and nasopharyngeal tumors, and enlarged adenoids can cause obstruction of the nasal air circulation and thereby diminish the sense of smell.

Anosmia can often be difficult to confirm, particularly if a pediatric patient has true anosmia. Many children with olfactory dysfunction may not recognize their deficits, or often pretend to smell to please their parents, or prevaricate to attract attention. Moreover, long, complex olfactory tests are impractical owing to the short attention span of some young children, and are further limited because odor concepts require experience with odors that some children have yet to come across.