Dental caries among the elderly in Norway.

Objectives: [corrected] To describe the occurrence of decayed teeth (DT), missing teeth (MT), filled teeth (FT), and the total sum score DMFT in elderly Norwegian pensioners, 67 years or more.

Basic Procedures: A representative sample of 582 elderly Norwegians (12.5% receiving social care) participated in a nationwide study (46% men and 54% women). In all, 394 (68%) still had some of their own teeth. A standardized clinical examination was performed by one of the authors (BMH) using well-defined criteria.

Main Findings: Mean DT was 0.46, FT was 8.4, and DMFT was 25.4. Mean number of root remnants was 0.11. Mean DT, FT, DMFT, and root remnants for the dentate participants were 0.67, 12.4, 24.1, and 0.17, respectively. Men had significantly higher DT than women. DT decreased with increasing age. Only small differences were found in the prevalence of dentate individuals with caries between gender, age groups, geographical regions, and residence in areas of varying population density.

Conclusion: It seems that caries is a minor problem in the Norwegian elderly population. Age and the number of remaining teeth do not have a decisive role in the development of caries. Further, there are no differences in these respects between geographical areas in Norway.