Smelling Trouble: Potential Solutions

As a continuation of the previous post on the difficulties faced by those with anosmia in the kitchen, this post presents some solutions we have thought of as a group.

The Ideal Solution

In an ideal world people would not have anosmia or problems with their sense of smell at all.  Since an ideal world doesn’t exist, we must consider the ideal solution.  Then the ideal solution is one that brings back the sense of smell without anyone being wise to the fact that it was gone in the first place.  In practical terms, a mass-spectrometer that analyses all the molecules that goes through the nose and then sends the appropriate signal to the brain so that it may make us “smell”.  In terms of odors there are already quantitative methods of assessing the concentration or intensity of the smell.  The challenge here would be to replicate the correct signal to be sent to the brain.  All this of course, wrapped in an “invisible” and unintrusive physical form that does not lead to stigmatisation or a view that such a supportive tool is out of the norm.  Such a solution has yet to materialise however and so we must look at other alternatives.

The Realistic Solution

The first thing we usually do when deprived of one of our senses is to use the other senses to compensate.  Those who are visually impaired used their sense of touch to read and those who are deaf use sight to communicate instead for example.  Thus it is a easy to use the other remaining senses to compensate for the problems faced.  These problems included but are no doubt not limited to:

1. Inability to recognise spoiled or rotten food
2. Inability to recognise the burning and charring of food and its consequences

These are the two most obvious and simple problems to solve without resorting to high-tech solutions.

The thing with perishable foods is that they will spoil and go rotten.  Eating such food is a particular health hazard, as well tasting awful in some cases.  It is primarily the sense of smell that allows us to be able to distinguish whether the milk or meat has gone bad.  In my experience, if there is anything a person with anosmia trusts less than their nose, it is the nose of another person!  Since odor can be quantified, we should be able to fashion some kind of visually observable and objective olfactory indicator similar to pH indicators.  A litmus test for smell essentially that detects whether a package of a certain food product that has gone bad or otherwise.  A visual strip of colour that changes from green to red should be enough of an indicator to even those without anosmia to determine if something has become rotten without having to take a sniff themselves.  There are a few drawbacks to this, but generally is because of the way we store food.  In fact, sometimes we don’t store food in nicely sealed containers that may cause a problem.  Another problem is that due to the diverse nature of food products, their process of decomposition is different and thus there must be specific detectors for such.

As for the matter of burning food and unable to sense it at a glance, there are already solutions in place for this.  Air-sampling smoke detectors could and should be more than adequate.  This is especially true in kitchens with ventilators.  The only modification to the system would be a silent and private alarm, perhaps something akin to a wireless earphone slaved to the system.  If it is at all useful remains is debatable as a general rule of thumb when cooking is to always pay attention to the things on a stove, or at least I hope it is.

The Exploitable Solution???

Whilst looking at existing solutions we came across a rather interesting app that was currently in development.  ChatPerf is an application for iPhone with a small accessories to be plugged into a port. The accessory is a self-triggering container of perfume.  The current downside of course that the smell that is transferred is reliant solely on the container provided by the makers of ChatPerf.  There is potential for it to assist those with anosmia in a situation where they require someone’s help to smell something.  If such a thing existed perhaps my mother could ask me if the milk is spoiled in Thailand while I sit in my small apartment in Sweden.  The thought is in ever equal parts reassuring and bothersome.

Smelling Trouble

Rather than taking a look at well explored impairments, our group was rather inspired to take a look at something different.  What we decided to investigate was the impairment of the sense of smell.  Specifically we want to focus on non-congenital (i.e. acquired) hyposmia and anosmia, the decreased ability to smell and lack of ability to smell respectively.  For brevity’s sake we will use the term anosmia.  The major but non-obvious problem that we want to explore is how to help those with olfactory impairments with regards to cooking.  Our first step of course was to look at the impairment itself, which after some research was actually a fair bit more common than we thought.

It is far easier to identify a blind person with his cane, a deaf person with sign language, a physically impaired person with his wheelchair and so on.  People with anosmia have no such visible nor obvious aids.  Because of this people with anosmia are often subjected to a different kind of social isolation.  Many find their impairment awkward and difficult to explain.  One cannot simply turn off their sense of smell to try and experience a little of what a person with anosmia would.  This makes it harder to understand the kind of trouble a person with anosmia has and harder to relate to as well.  Anosmia also affects their quality of life.

The sense of smell is strongly connected to the sense of taste and the lack of the former would affect the latter.  It also poses a danger to themselves and others, like when it comes to detecting the smell of smoke or harmful chemicals.  With respect to cooking, a skewed sense of taste and the inability to smell burning or rotten food is dangerous in it’s own ways.  For the former, the change in preference with regards to the taste of the food can lead to an imbalanced or improper diet.  The latter is a fire safety and health hazard.

Anosmia has a variety of causes, among them but not limited to are Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, old age, head trauma, nasal polyps, allergies, the common cold, smoking and poisoning.  The most common treatment for anosmia is through use of medication.  Medication is a temporary solution and sometimes is not effective, further throwing of the sense of smell.  Thus the next step of our project is to find ways in which to aid those with anosmia in the kitchen and ensure their safety and health through design.  Whether they are feasible or useful at all remains to be seen.

Project Members: Rathakan Leepraphantkul, Nur Gadima