Questão 9 - Unichristus 2024/2

THE AMAZING WOMAN WHO CAN SMELL PARKINSON’S DISEASE – BEFORE SYMPTOMS APPEAR

 

 Researchers at the University of Edinburgh gave T-shirts to six people with Parkinson’s and six people without the disease. After the subjects wore the shirts, they were passed on to Joy Milne, who then had to determine by smell whether each wearer had Parkinson’s.

 Her diagnoses were strangely accurate – and have potentially unprecedented implications for people living with the disease. Milne made correct assessments for 11 out of the 12 cases. In the one case she got “wrong,” she insisted that a T-shirt worn by a member of the control group had the warning scent.

 Eight months after the study was conducted, she was proven right, bringing her accuracy rate up to one hundred. The supposedly healthy individual contacted one of the doctors and informed him that he had, in fact, just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Disponível em: https://www.smh.com.au. Acesso em: 19 jun. 2024 (adaptado).

 

Due to Joy Milne’s impressive sense of smell, on a study she