Taste alteration, mouth dryness and teeth staining as side effects of medications taken by elderly

Abstract

Elderly patients generally use several types of medication, some of which may cause oral side effects. Aim: To investigate the oral side effects caused by medication in an elderly sample. Methods: Three hundred patients were interviewed about their use of medication and were divided in two groups: institutionalized (n=150) and community-dwelling (n=150) elderly. Results: The most used drugs were antihypertensives (53%) for community-dwelling elders and antiulceratives (76%) for the institutionalized ones. The more prevalent side effects were taste alterations that occurred in 19%, dry mouth in 17% and teeth staining in 2%. Conclusions: A high prevalence of oral side effects from medications used by the elderly was found in this study. The health professionals should be aware of the possible side effects caused by prescribed medications.

A Teaching Tool for Establishing Risk of Oral Health Deterioration in Elderly Patients: Development, Implementation, and Evaluation at a U.S. Dental School

“…30,33 For this project, we adapted previously published experiences on teaching caries risk and interviewed experienced geriatric dentistry faculty members to delineate the steps they intuitively apply when processing risk factors for their clinical decision making and treatment planning for an elderly patient. Then, the risk factors collected from the literature [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] (Table 1) and the experts' interviews were combined to derive a set of ten steps to guide students through the expert thought process ( Table 2).…”

“…The second step is to gather the information needed and determine risk factors for ROHD. Risk factors for ROHD among the elderly were taken from the geriatric dentistry literature [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] and can be divided into categories based on general health conditions, social conditions, and oral conditions ( Table 1). These risk factors are the core of the risk analysis.…”

“…Common systemic health problems among the elderly that cause a decline in general function include, but are not limited to, neuro-degenerative conditions and dementia, [13][14][15] diabetes, [16][17][18] depression, 15,19 polypharmacy, 18,20,21 arthritis, 17 and stroke. 17,22 These systemic health problems can impact oral health in many ways.…”

Systemic Health Characteristics and Self-Reported Xerostomia among Nursing Facility Residents in Iowa-US and Sao Paulo-Brazil

“…This paper aims to present and compare systemic health characteristics and xerostomia profiles of NF residents from the State of Iowa, USA, and the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Based on previous reports [7,9,23,24], our hypothesis is that more co-morbidities and more medications are present among the American population. Furthermore, we expect that the reporting of dry mouth sensation will correlate with the total number of medications used.…”

Oral health care for patients with Alzheimer's disease: An update

“…46 Among the ROHD risk factors related to general health, neurodegenerative conditions and dementia are considered as significant risk factors and treatment plan modifiers, 7,11 as well as conditions that often accompany dementia, like depression 47 and polypharmacy. 48,49 Older adults with cognitive impairment have many functional losses that can impair their ability to keep their oral hygiene routines. For instance, memory and executive function losses can compromise their ability to perform oral hygiene in a regular and appropriate fashion.…”