Can Olfactory Training With Essential Oils Restore Sense of Smell After COVID?

To receive AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™, you must receive a minimum score of 75% on the post-test.

1. You are a member of the health care team for a 47-year-old woman with loss of sense of smell after COVID-19 infection. On the basis of the randomized, single-blinded trial by Khan and colleagues, which one of the following statements about the efficacy of bimodal visual-olfactory training and patient-preferred scents compared with unimodal olfactory training and physician-assigned scents in COVID-19 olfactory loss is correct?
   The primary end point of change in objective University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test scores was significantly better with bimodal olfactory training and patient-preferred scents
   24% of participants in the control group and 53% in the bimodal, patient-preferred group had clinically important improvement on the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test
   Mean change in Olfactory Dysfunction Outcomes Rating (ODOR) score was significantly better with bimodal olfactory training and patient-preferred scents, with clinically important differences
   No adverse effects were reported with olfactory training
2. According to the randomized, single-blinded trial by Khan and colleagues, which one of the following statements about clinical implications of the efficacy of bimodal visual-olfactory training and patient-preferred scents compared with unimodal olfactory training and physician-assigned scents in COVID-19 olfactory loss is correct?
   The study proves that olfactory training is of no benefit in patients with postviral olfactory dysfunction from COVID
   Clinicians should not recommend olfactory training to patients with postviral olfactory dysfunction
   The study identified the optimal olfactory training delivery method
   Future studies should focus on identifying subgroups for whom olfactory training is likely to benefit, alone or in combination with other potential treatments