Building Better Oral Health Communities for Older Adults

Objectives: To investigate the impact of oral health screening and referral that is being integrated in the existing community aged care on self or proxy-rated oral health and oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) in frail community-dwelling elderly.
Methods: An oral screening including 6 questions for community-dwelling older adults on their need for dental treatment was implemented through 6 aged care packages. Older adults completed a pre-dental treatment questionnaire, including level of self-rated oral health and adverse social impacts from oral disorders in the previous 4 weeks measured by the 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14). After receiving treatment at a SA Dental Service (SADS) community clinic, participants were asked to answer the same questions.
Results: 99% of (316 out of 319) frail older adults either responded affirmatively to the question about need for dental visit or reported one or more impacts queried in the remaining screening questions were identified as participants needing a dental visit and were referred to SADS community clinics. Pre-treatment self-rated oral health and OHIP-14 in this elderly cohort were significantly worse than their contemporaries in the population. The percentage who reported their oral health as being good, very good or excellent increased from 59% pre-treatment to 75% post-treatment (p<0.01). Post-dental treatment, the average number of impacts significantly reduced from 2.1 to 0.5 impacts, indicating a significant improvement (P<0.01). The self/proxy reported quality of life post-intervention was similar to that of their peers in the general population.
Conclusions: This project developed a new referral pathway for community-dwelling older adults into dental treatment. An improvement in self-rated oral health and social impacts of oral disease was achieved after older adults received oral screening and referral through the existing community aged care and subsequent dental care.