Oral Infections in Older Adults

Abstract

Dental plaque may contain 1011 bacteria/mg and over 700 microbial species have been identified in the oral cavity. Microorganisms may gain access from the mouth into the circulation through decayed teeth, periodontal pockets and mucosal lesions. Frail edentulous persons are also susceptible to yeast infections if oral hygiene is poor. Oral infections have been suggested to pose detrimental effects to systemic health, in particular, cardiovascular diseases. Functional capacity and muscle strength may also be impaired by chronic mouth infections. These infections also seem to associate with all-cause mortality. Thus, oral infections need to be properly diagnosed, treated and prevented in elderly individuals. An additional problem in the aging population is medication that can often reduce saliva secretion and cause dry mouth. This further predisposes older adults to oral infections. Therefore, polypharmacy should be avoided whenever possible.

Alternating and sequential motion rates in older adults

“…The hypothesis that older participants would have slower mean rates was formed after consideration of past studies in which age and diadochokinesis were investigated. Many researchers have documented that rate decreases with age (Amerman and Parnell , Meurer et al . , Padovani et al .…”

“…The researcher demonstrated the first task and each participant then practised the task. Similar to Amerman and Parnell (), redirection was given if production of any task was not perceived to be maximally fast, if articulatory precision was compromised by the rate, or if the participant did not produce the repetitions for more than 4 s, as judged by the voice recorder's digital display. If participants were unable to produce at least 4 s of correct repetitions with further prompting, their data were excluded from the study.…”

“…There are only seven published studies of diadochokinetic rate comprising a group of healthy participants termed ‘elderly’ or ‘aged’ (table ) and only a minority of these studies were designed to produce a normative data set (Padovani et al . , Amerman and Parnell ). Four studies were limited by small sample sizes (Amerman and Parnell , Kikutani et al .…”

“…, Amerman and Parnell ). Four studies were limited by small sample sizes (Amerman and Parnell , Kikutani et al . , Meurer et al .…”

“…Deliyski and Gress , Westbury and Dembowski ). Rates for both tasks increase between childhood and adulthood (Amerman and Parnell , Maturo et al . ).…”