Community Update (10/15/25)

Wellness

Medicare Open Enrollment October 15 – December 7

Medicare’s Annual Open Enrollment Period (OEP) is the one time each year when Medicare beneficiaries can make changes to the Medicare plan enrollment. The OEP is available between October 15-December 7, with plan changes taking effect January 1.

• Point 1: Plans may change their costs, the drugs they cover, or withdraw out of Medicare entirely each calendar year. When a plan stops covering a drug, it shifts the financial cost to the client, leaving the client responsible for the full cost of the drug, if they remain enrolled in the same plan.
• Point 2: During OEP, using the Medicare Plan Finder, beneficiaries can assess and make changes to their health insurance coverage, to include adding, dropping, or changing their Medicare Advantage or Part D Prescription Drug Plan. They can also assess Medigap policies.
• Point 3: The Virginia Insurance Counseling and Assistance Program (VICAP) can provide you with FREE, unbiased, confidential and personal assistance. You can speak to a trained counselor who will walk you through the steps to maximize your benefits Get in touch with VICAP 1 of 3 ways:
  • By calling 703-228-1725
  • By sending an email to MedicareHelp@arlingtonva.us
  • By visiting https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Departments/DHS/Aging-Disability/Programs/VICAP

Can You Smell That?  Why We Need Our Sense of Smell                                 

By Joan Smith

The scent of a just-opened rose, the smell of a new car, the unwelcome smell of mystery food rotting at the back of our fridge—these scents help us identify our environment, and often give us pleasure, or trigger wonderful memories of past events involving the scent.  New mown grass, the ocean, homemade soup—these all enhance our daily lives. But where would smell be without the sense of taste?

When you have a stuffy head cold, you can’t smell, but you also can’t taste.  So, what is the link? What is called flavor of food is actually a combination of tasting, which happens in the mouth, and smell, which happens in the nose.  The brain puts together the information from taste and smell receptors (plus information about texture and temperature) to produce an overall flavor sensation (NIH website, March 2025).  Feeling a bit rusty on how this all works, I took a quick dive into a refresher on taste and smell, which I will share with you here.

Taste receptors, located in your tongue (in bumps called papillae) can only sense things that are: sour, salty, sweet, and savory.  So most of what we call “flavor” actually comes from smell (olfactory) receptors.  Smell receptors are located at the very back and uppermost part of your nose.  They smell odorants, or chemicals that dissolve into the air.  For example, vinegar dissolves in the air, but sugar does not. Our smell receptors can detect thousands of odorants!

Because your nose is connected to your mouth (via the nasopharynx tube), anything in your mouth that contains odorants can be detected by the smell receptors in your nose.  But, when you have a stuffy cold, those odorants cannot reach your smell receptors and so you can’t smell them.

The New York Times (October 7, 2025) had a brief “wellness” article addressing the fact that, with age, just as our other senses tend to decline, so does our sense of taste.  According to a 2016 study, this happens to three quarters of older adults!  This tends to happen gradually, and often is due to smell loss.  To compensate, people may add more salt, sugar or fat to food to boost flavor.  Others may lose appetites and become frail.  Both of these choices are unhealthy for sure! Taste and smell are even tied to depression, since these senses are connected to the brain’s emotion and rewards circuits.  Plus food is often tied to culture, family and identity.

Generally speaking, these sense impairments may be connected to: trauma, viruses (remember Covid), inflammation, oral health (gum disease, loss of teeth) and age, with age being the biggest risk factor.  And since older people tend to have more medical conditions and/or medications that affect taste and smell, we experience the most decline!

Addressing taste and smell issues first demands a thorough medical assessment, as many factors may be reversible to enhance the senses.  Taking steps to improve oral health, hydration, dietary restriction conditions (such as Diabetes) and perhaps medication changes all may work to enhance the senses.

As for the age factor, enhancing the food experience seems to be the most promising.  Trying various spices and herbs to add depth to food taste, varying color and texture of food may help.  And any presentation aspects that can harken memories of great taste of that food, may support the eating experience.

So, friends, eat (flavorful food), drink (pumpkin spice soft drinks) and be merry as we enter autumn and the wonderful harvest foods of the season!!