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IPCE - 0.25 Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credit
This activity is intended for infectious disease clinicians, family medicine/primary care clinicians, internists, nurses, pharmacists, physician’s assistants, and other members of the health care team for patients with loss of sense of smell from COVID-19.
The goal of this activity is for learners to be better able to describe 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 measured with the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test, based on a randomized, single-blinded trial.
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Awarded 0.25 contact hour(s) of nursing continuing professional development for RNs and APNs; 0.00 contact hours are in the area of pharmacology.
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CME / ABIM MOC / CE Released: 2/24/2023
Valid for credit through: 2/24/2024, 11:59 PM EST
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Complications of olfactory loss may include initiation of depression, reduced detection of potentially harmful stimuli such as smoke and spoiled foods, weight loss, diminished social well-being, and increased mortality in older adults. Evidence is weak for efficacy of pharmacotherapy COVID-19-associated postviral olfactory dysfunction.
The most effective method for olfactory training delivery is unknown, as is overall olfactory training efficacy in COVID-19 olfactory loss. Multisensory integration by adding a visual component to olfactory training may potentiate olfactory neuroplasticity by stimulating cross-modal sensory transfer. Olfactory training protocols with modifications that increase adherence may also improve efficacy.
Personalized essential oils may help people recover their sense of smell, lost because of COVID-19, according to a new study.
Called olfactory training, the process involves smelling the oils regularly to “challenge” the nerves responsible for sending smell messages to the brain, according to The Mayo Clinic. Those nerves are known to be able to heal and regrow in a process called neuroplasticity.
The study was published last week in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.[1] It included 275 people aged 18 to 71 years who reported loss of smell as a result of COVID-19. Participants sniffed the oils for 15 seconds with a 30-second rest between odors. The study lasted for 3 months.
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A traditional olfactory training protocol uses 4 specific scents: rose, lemon, eucalyptus, and clove. One group in the new study used those scents, and another group sniffed 4 scents that they selected themselves from 24 scent options. A third control group did not participate in olfactory training. In addition, a subset of people in the study were shown images of the scents they smelled.
Although there were no “definitive” differences between the individual approaches, the researchers noted that there may be benefits for patients who get to both select their scents and see images of the scents.
In a companion commentary published with the study, Carol Yan, MD, from the University of California San Diego, said that the improvements some patients saw may have been a placebo effect and should be considered for treatment plans of patients who lost their sense of smell as a result of COVID-19.[2]
“Allowing patients to select their own odorants may improve cost-effectiveness and increase adherence, particularly if there was an issue of familiarity with 1 of the classic 4 odorants,” she writes. “The addition of visual cues to [olfactory training] may improve engagement in some patients while increasing the burden on others. Ultimately, patients’ belief and satisfaction in their therapeutic plan can have substantial placebo-effect benefits that are not to be ignored.”
An estimated 700,000 people have lost their sense of smell as a result of COVID-19, the authors said. Most people regain their sense of smell within a year.
JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. Published online December 29, 2022.