Losing your sense of smell is never insignificant
More common than you might think, prolonged or even permanent impairment of the sense of smell can be linked to a number of medical or traumatic causes. This has very real consequences in everyday life, both socially and privately.
In Switzerland, around 5% of the population suffer from a complete loss of smell, and 15% from a partial loss known as hyposmia. This means that this little-known disorder is much more common than we think.
Without having the far more dramatic consequences of visual or hearing loss, olfactory loss is not insignificant.
Dr Yann Litzistorf, FMH specialist in otorhinolaryngology, explains in the weekly Lausanne Cités.
