Celebrating its 14th year in 2025, Thursday 27th February is Anosmia Awareness Day.
This Anosmia Awareness Day, we’re partnering with Fifth Sense, the charity for people affected by smell and taste disorders, to raise awareness of smell impairment.
Anosmia, the inability to detect smells, is one such condition. It can be acquired through head injuries, illnesses such as colds, flu or COVID-19, medication or treatments, conditions such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, and lots more. It can also be congenital where people are born without a sense of smell.
Other smell conditions include parosmia, where someone’s smell is distorted and things smell horrible, and phantosmia where people detect smells in the absence of a stimulus.
It’s estimated that as many as 5% of people in the UK are living with anosmia and as much as 22% of the general adult population have some degree of olfactory dysfunction, yet there are very few treatments, not enough research into the causes, and a lack of knowledge amongst health and social care professionals.
Please join us in supporting #AnosmiaAwarenessDay to help transform society’s understanding of these under-recognised sensory impairments. It’s time to give our senses of smell and taste the attention they deserve.
Some of the main issues around smell dysfunction are:
- Anosmia, both congenital and acquired, and other smell and taste disorders are widely under-recognised
- Smell loss can be an early indicator of serious conditions
- Mental health can be seriously impacted by smell disorders
- A high number of people with a traumatic brain injury experience smell loss
- People with impaired smell can take simple and often free measures to stay safe at home
- Some cancer treatments can affect the sense of smell
Do you or someone you know have problems with your sense of smell and/or taste?
If you would like support or information about anosmia and other smell and taste disorders, visit the Fifth Sense website at https://www.fifthsense.org.uk/
If you would like to access support around any of the issues mentioned in this blog, or to share your own lived experience, give the Healthwatch Essex Information & Guidance Service a call on 0300 500 1895, email [email protected] or text/WhatsApp on 07712 395398.
It’s time to give our senses of smell and taste the attention they deserve.
#AnosmiaAwarenessDay
Sharon Westfield de Cortez
Information & Guidance Manager