The woman who helped scientists by smelling her husband's illness

Parkinson's test : The woman who helped scientists by smelling her husband's illness

A Scottish woman who detected her husband's Parkinson's disease by smell has helped scientists develop a test that can diagnose the disease.

Manchester researchers have developed a method that can diagnose the disease in three minutes.

More research is needed before they can use this test routinely. But the reason behind this invention is a former nurse from Perth, Joy Milne.

Joy, 72, learned of her husband's Parkinson's disease 12 years before his diagnosis because she noticed a change in his body odor.

"My husband had an unpleasant odor coming from the back of his shoulders and neck and his skin had also changed," she says.

But the reason for the change was actually Parkinson's disease, which he discovered when he was diagnosed with the disease and met people in a Parkinson's support group in the UK who had a similar smell.

Joy's husband passed away in 2015.

But a team at the University of Manchester, with Joy's help, developed a skin test that they say gives up to 95 percent accurate results.

These researchers examined the oily sebum on the skin that was obtained from the backs of patients using cotton swabs.

Using mass spectrometry, they compared samples from 79 people with Parkinson's to samples from 71 healthy people.

In this study, they found 4,000 rare compounds in the samples, of which 500 were different between people with Parkinson's and healthy people.

"There was no chemical test to diagnose Parkinson's and thousands of people were waiting on the list to see a neurological specialist," says Dr Predita Baran, who led the study.

"A test that can be used by the general practitioner is a major breakthrough," she says.

"Currently we have developed it in a research laboratory and now we are working in a hospital laboratory so that it can be used in such an environment as well."

They hope to start using the test in Manchester within the next two years.

Parkinson's is one of the fastest growing neurological diseases. In Great Britain alone, 145,000 people are affected by it, of which 12,000 are from Scotland.

No cure has yet been discovered and there is no definitive test that can help diagnose it. Medical doctors can judge whether patients have this disease or not just by looking at their symptoms.

Its symptoms include difficulty walking and speaking, as well as convulsions.

James Jopling, director of Parkinson's UK Scotland, said: 'This discovery will make a difference to the lives of people living with the disease.'

'People have to wait months and years to be diagnosed and then treated. Therefore, this discovery is very important.

Joy knows how important early diagnosis is.

"We could have spent more time with the family," she says.

We could have moved around more. If we had known that my husband had this disease, I would have understood his depression and mood swings.'

The night before her husband died, she made Joy promise to further investigate her sense of smell.

Joy says he said, 'You have to do it because it will make a big difference.'

They hope their accidental discovery will lead to the same.