The WellSmell team met Professor Thomas Hummel, the guru of olfactory training

The WellSmell team met Professor Thomas Hummel on September 6, 2022 at the teams meeting. Professor Thomas Hummel has conducted and been involved in several scientific studies related to olfactory training. Professor Hummel is considered the world’s guru of olfactory training.

We discussed e.g. about the recognition of olfactory training both in Europe and in Finland. Smell training is generally known in Europe, but not so much in Finland.

We brought up the importance of training also in matters related to safety, such as food and fire safety. It is very important that a person, after losing the sense of smell, should also practice with safety-related scents, e.g. with the smell of burnt wood. Thomas Hummel said that usually people train with the scents they like the most. Hummel thought it was important to practice with safety-related scents as well, so that people could sense possible dangerous situations, such as e.g. spoiled food, fire situations and the smell of mold in the apartment.

In the future, we will also introduce safety-related scents to the market, which will complement training even more.