Improving oral health of older adults for healthy ageing.

J Dent Sci

School of Dentistry, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Published: January 2024

AI Article Synopsis

  • The article emphasizes the significance of oral health in promoting healthy aging, which is defined as maintaining functional ability and well-being in later years, according to the World Health Organization.* -
  • Good oral health not only influences physical, cognitive, and psychological health but also supports nutritional intake, thus enhancing the overall quality of life for older adults, their families, and society as a whole.* -
  • It calls for collaboration among policy makers, dental associations, and healthcare professionals to implement reforms aimed at ensuring equitable access to oral health care and preventing oral diseases in older adults.*

Article Abstract

The objective of this article is to discuss the importance of oral health in achieving healthy ageing and the role of all stakeholders in improving oral health for older adults. The World Health Organization defined healthy ageing as the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age. It recognized healthy ageing as an important goal and the key to turn population ageing from a challenge to an opportunity. Healthy ageing has positive impacts on individual older adults, their families and societies. It enhances quality of life of older adults, strengthen family bonding of families and reduce resource demand of the societies. Maintaining oral health and function is essential in healthy ageing. Oral health affects systemic health, cognitive health and psychological health. Oral functions such as eating ensure nutritional health in older adults. Most oral diseases are preventable and oral function decline can be recovered by intervention. Unfortunately, oral diseases remain prevalent and oral function decline is being neglected in older adults. Policy makers, national dental associations, academics and healthcare professionals should collaborate to provide a patient-centred, comprehensive and integrated care to older adults. Health policy reforms are needed to reduce the global oral health inequalities in older adults. Population-wide prevention should be accessible, affordable and available to older adults. Universal oral health coverage is crucial for integration of oral health into general health care.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10829734PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jds.2023.10.018DOI Listing

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