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Brian - I know others have written about smell testing as an early (pre-symptomatic) test for PD. Just thought I'd throw my two cents' worth in. The University of Kansas Medical Center was conducting a study of smell testing as a tool for early diagnosis of PD a few years ago. My understanding is that the test results showed a very strong correlation between PD and loss of smell. I don't know whether the test is widely used yet or not. Certainly most of the PD patients at KU Med were tested. I sat in the same room with Dick (52/15) while he took the test, and I was amazed that he couldn't identify odors that were clear to me three feet away. It's not that he couldn't smell anything, he said. But he would ponder long and hard over each answer because although he smelled *something," he couldn't identify what it was. For example, when I clearly smelled bubble gum, he would say something like, "I'm just trying to decide if it's lilacs or gasoline." However, when he smells an unpleasant odor - for example, when changing the cat's litter box - he says it sticks with him for hours and hours. Margie Swindler [log in to unmask]