Meet The Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's Disease

Joy Milne’s husband’s diagnosis led her to discover a remarkable ability that could be used to give other sufferers a more positive future.

- Joan McFadden

When Joy Milne noticed that her husband, Les, then 33, had started to have a ‘musky, woody smell’, she never imagined he’d be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 12 years later – or that there was even a link between the two at all. ‘I began tactfully suggesting that maybe he wasn’t showering enough,’ she says. ‘He didn’t smell it and was adamant that he was washing properly.’

About four years after Joy noticed this scent, Les’ character began to change. ‘He wasn’t the man I’d known since I was 16,’ Joy admits. ‘This isn’t easy to talk about, but his inhibitions went.’ About eight years before his diagnosis in 1995, at just 45, Les began having mood swings, with bursts of anger that left Joy dreading what might come next. ‘Meanwhile, socially he could command a room and have the whole place in stitches, but he also became very touchy-feely with other women and sometimes caused offence – he would try to joke it off, but some people really didn’t like it,’ she recalls.

As a nurse [now retired], Joy, 67, is naturally tolerant, which helped as she tried to come to terms with what was happening to Les. Their three sons were aged 13, 10 and nine when family life started to change, but Joy was able to hide a great deal from them. The changes in Les were gradual at first, so she didn’t immediately notice what was happening to the gentle, caring man she’d spent so many years with – especially as he was still doing well in his job as an anaesthetist.