Chrissi Kelly at A Slice of Sensory

‘A Slice of Sensory’, the Sensory Science Group Annual Conference, was held on 18th May 2015 at the East Midlands Conference Centre.   The Sensory Science Group welcomes anyone with an interest in the sensory and hosts regular discussion workshops in addition to their annual conference.

Chrissi Kelly was a guest at A Slice of Sensory and gave a poster presentation on smell training, following her own experience of following this process as she regained some of her olfactory ability in 2014.  Chrissi lost her sense of smell as the result of a virus, and although things have improved in the last year or so, she experiences parosmia (distortions of the sense of smell) so that things don’t smell the same as she remembers them to.  She’s therefore had to re-learn smells, as if for the first time.  Spontaneous recovery of some degree of olfactory ability can occur following post-viral anosmia but unfortunately parosmia is quite a common side-effect with this type of smell loss, so Chrissi’s experience of ‘everything smelling new’ isn’t unusual.

Chrissi was one of only five of eighteen delegates at the conference invited to give an oral presentation alongside her poster, and things got better still as she (fully deservedly in our view!) won the prize for best poster as the result of a vote amongst delegates.   We’re sure you’ll join us in congratulating Chrissi and thanking her for playing her part in helping raise awareness of olfactory disorders, the potential benefits of smell training and Fifth Sense.

For more information on smell training visit www.fifthsense.org.uk/smell-training