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This is scientific American's 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagata.

Memory loss and forgetfulness are common warning signs for dementia, but a dulling of the senses also appears

to be associated with the disease.

Smelling is definitely the strongest one we found, but it does seem like it's not just smelled.

Will Abrenewitz, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Her team studied cognitive decline in 1800 adults from the Health, Aging, and

Body Composition Study, which tracked the health, aging, and body composition study, which tracked the health and

mental function of older adults over a 17-year period.

During this study, the subjects completed sensory tests, including hearing, smell, touch, and vision.

Brennowitz's team took the results of those tests and then compared the adult's overall sensory

abilities to their mental function.

And the results...

Those with better function had a lower risk of dementia and with worse multiple sensory function, they had higher risk of dementia.

A decline in smell in particular had the strongest link to dementia.

The results are in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association,

Alzheimer's and dementia.

The scientists were just studying correlations here,

but Brennowitz says if they can figure out how well

multisensory decline predicts dementia risk, it might give doctors another tool to

...