Comparison of two types of odour test results in 59 elderly male

There are two types of odour tests that use 12 types of odours familiar to Japanese people in their daily lives as screening: odour sticks and open essence. In this study, we performed these two types of olfactory tests on the same male over 60 years old, and compared the results to clarify whether there were any differences. Twelvedifferent smells are India ink, wood, perfume, menthol, mandarin oranges, curry, household gas, roses, cypress, sweaty socks, condensed milk, friedgarlic. The participants were 59 male aged 60 years or older who received an explanation of the study and signed a subject consent form. Participants performed the open essence test, followed by a 10-minute break and then the odour stick test. In both tests, participants smelled the odour and then wrote the number they thought was correct from six options in the answer box. Options 1 through 4 were various specific odour names. Options 5 were for when there was an odour (detection) but it was unclear what it was, and option6 was for when there was no odour at all (odorless). The results of the two tests performed on the same subjects were compared statistically (chi-square test). The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference in the number of correct answers (P-0.579). However, when comparing each odour individually, there were statistically significant differences between the odours of India ink (P=0.009**), mandarin orange (p=0.002**), curry (P=0.012*), and fried garlic (P=0.008**). The results showed that the smells of India ink and curry were easier to identify using the open essence than using the odour stick, while the smells of mandarin oranges and fried garlic were easier to identify using the smelly stick than using the open essence. There were no statistically significant differences among the other eight odours. Even if the tests use the same 12 types of odours that are familiar to Japanese people, the results obtained will differ for each individual odour, so it can be said that the results cannot be combined or added together. A series of the studies must be conducted using the same method.