Care Needs of the Elderly Treated at a Dental School¹

Abstract

Increased longevity and recently intensified emphasis on gerodontology mandate that dental students'exposure to clinical care of the elderly be enhanced. The extent to which individual students can be exposed to geriatric dental care depends on the availability of elderly patients to dental school clinics and the treatment needs of these patients. The purposes of this study were (1) to determine the dental treatment needs of geriatric patients who seek care at a dental school, and (2) to ascertain if differences exist between the needs of older versus relatively young geriatric patients. Data collected on 128 elderly patients during a three month period indicate that 57% of the aged were either edentulous at examination or treatment planned to become edentulous and receive two full dentures. The remaining 43% were treatment planned to remain dentulous and receive therapies other than full upper and lower dentures. More older geriatric patients required full dentures than their younger cohorts. More young elderly required prophylaxes, scalings, root planing therapy, dental restorations, and partial dentures. Additional to their denture requirements, aged patients appear to have sufficient non‐prosthetic needs to allow for meaningful gerodontic experience by students.

Prosthodontic, Periodontal, and Other Common Needs of Older Adults Seeking Treatment at a Canadian Dental School: A 30-year Comparison

“…Among the dentate population surveyed, plaque control (PC), scaling and root planning (SRP) were the greatest need (56.1%) followed by caries control (49.3%), and these findings are unchanged and similar to the treatment needs three decades ago at this site and other locales in the USA. 24 A noticeable finding was the significant reduction of periodontal surgery in the present cohort (3.2%) compared to 1986-1988 (39.7%). The reason for this is uncertain but could be due to the prevailing treatment philosophies at that time specially related to mucogingival surgery.…”