- [Narrator] Smell.
We know when it's good, and we know when it's bad,
but there's a woman in Scotland -
- [Voiceover] I'm Joy Milne.
- [Narrator] Who can smell the unsmellable.
- [Voiceover] My nose went on fire.
- [Narrator] Joy Milne is the only known person
who can smell Parkinson's Disease.
- [Voiceover] I have an extremely sensitive sense of smell.
(sniffing)
I can smell it mainly on the forehead
and the back of the neck.
- [Narrator] To Joy, it has a greasy musky odor.
- [Voiceover] It is just a heavy smell to me.
- [Narrator] She first noticed it on her late husband,
Les Milne twelve years before he was diagnosed.
- [Voiceover] I just thought he was tired
and he wasn't showering enough.
It wasn't very welcome of course,
me saying to him, well, you're smelling.
- [Narrator] It wasn't until she attended a conference
with other Parkinson's patients that
she realized the smell was something more.
- [Voiceover] When I walked into the room I thought gosh,
these other people smell the same as Les does.
At the end of the meeting I stood up and said,
why were they not investigating the smell of Parkinson's.
- [Narrator] No one was investigating
because no one else could smell it.
Researchers set up a controlled experiment
to test Joy's nose.
She was asked to distinguish a set of t-shirts
worn by those with and without the disease.
She insisted one of the subjects
in the control group had the musky scent.
- [Voiceover] The man rang about eight months later
and said, “I’ve got Parkinson’s.”
So, I had pre-diagnosed somebody.
- [Narrator] By the time most people are diagnosed
80 to 90 percent of the damage is done.
So Joy's mission is to help scientists
improve early detection methods.
- [Voiceover] If they can find these people earlier,
it would stop this anguish.
That would make such a difference.