Oral diseases and conditions in community‐living older adults with and without dementia

Abstract

This study compared the prevalence and experiences of oral diseases and conditions, as well as tooth loss and retained root status, in community-dwelling older adults with and without dementia. Dental examinations were conducted at baseline and at one-year for randomly selected samples of 116 dentate community-living older adults with dementia and a comparable group of 116 adults without dementia. Participants with dementia had significantly higher experiences of oral diseases and conditions at baseline and one-year compared with participants without dementia: decreased use of dentures; increased prevalence of denture-related oral mucosal lesions; increased plaque accumulation; increased prevalence and experiences of coronal and root caries; and increased numbers of decayed retained tooth roots. These higher experiences of oral diseases and conditions were related to dementia severity, not to specific dementia diagnoses. Participants with dementia already had a compromised oral health status when admitted into institutional long-term care between baseline and one-year; of concern were the high plaque levels on the natural teeth of the group of institutionalized participants with dementia.

Tooth loss patterns in older adults with special needs: a Minnesota cohort

“…Due to loss of cognitive skills, physical disability, self-neglect, and lack of social support and resources for regular dental care, special-needs elders experience more oral disease and conditions compared to healthy, independent elders [1][2][3]. Compared to age-and gendermatched elders, demented patients may have poorer oral hygiene, and experience a high incidence of caries, may differ from that in general elderly population.…”

Cognitive Decline and Oral Health in Middle-aged Adults in the ARIC Study

“…In studies of people who had already developed cognitive impairment or dementia (Chalmers et al, 2003(Chalmers et al, , 2005Avlund et al, 2004;Yu and Kuo, 2008;Ellefsen et al, 2009;Syrjälä et al, 2012), participants had more dental caries, fewer teeth, and poorer periodontal health than adults without dementia. Poor oral health may be attributable to functional decline, poor oral hygiene care, and less use of dental services (Avlund et al, 2004;Wu et al, 2007).…”

Het gebruik van digitale technologie bij een zorgafhankelijke patiënt

“…Vele onderzoeken hebben aangetoond dat patiënten met het dementiesyndroom een grotere kans hebben op een slechte mondgezondheid met potentieel verlies van gebitselementen als gevolg (Warren et al, 1997;Ghezzi en Ship, 2000;Chalmers et al, 2003;Hatipoglu et al, 2010). Andere onderzoekers hebben getracht de relatie tussen een slechte mondgezondheid en het dementiesyndroom aan te tonen (Ship 1992;Shimazaki et al, 2001).…”