Speech therapy program for the rehabilitation of smell

To evaluate the effectiveness of a speech-language pathology-based therapeutic intervention for olfactory dysfunctions.

The speech-language olfactory rehabilitation program was applied to eight patients with complaints of reduced olfaction due to persistent post-viral infection (1 to 2 years post-infection) and confirmed hyposmia, as determined by the Connecticut Chemosensory Clinical Research Center test. The intervention consisted of 13 in-person sessions of 45 minutes each (the first and last for assessment), which included strategies aimed at increasing awareness of olfaction; nasal breathing and the need for frequent hygiene (nasal and intraoral); perception, identification, and contextualization of odor stimuli using four primary odors; the Nasal Airflow-Inducing Maneuver; as well as taste association and home-based training using the MedSmell® olfactory training kit, three times per day. The project was previously approved by the ethics committee and registered in the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials.

The patients had a mean age of 53.29 ± 21.92 years, with an even distribution between the sexes. All patients showed improvement in olfactory function: six (75%) recovered to normosmia, one (12.5%) improved from anosmia to moderate hyposmia and another (12.5%) from anosmia to mild hyposmia. The olfactory training kit was used daily at home, and all patients completed the program, reporting perceived therapeutic benefits.

The speech-language pathology intervention was effective in the rehabilitation of olfactory disorders of viral origin, though further studies with larger samples are needed to generalize the results.