Restoration of Posterior Teeth Occlusion and Mortality in the Elderly

Objectives: The association between tooth loss and mortality has been reported in elderly individuals. However, there are limited studies on the association between posterior teeth occlusion and mortality in nursing home residents. Therefore, in the present study, we examined the association between restoration of posterior teeth occlusion and mortality in nursing home residents over 1 year.
Methods: Subjects enrolled in this study comprised nursing home residents who were able to orally take in food. They were enrolled in baseline examinations in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A total of 190 subjects were included in the study, and we examined their teeth number and posterior occluding pairs (POPs; 0–8 pairs). We then defined prosthetic POPs (0–8 pairs) as pairs of occluding natural, restored, or fixed prosthetic postcanine teeth and removable dentures. Furthermore, nutritional status, activities of daily living, cognitive function, and comorbid conditions were assessed. One year later, we performed the same examination on 154 subjects, as 36 subjects had died. Univariate analyses using Mann–Whitney U-test and chi-square test were performed to examine the relationship between the follow-up group and the dead group. Factors significantly associated with mortality were entered into a multivariate logistic regression analysis.
Results: Univariate analyses showed that mortality was significantly associated with age, sex, nutritional status, activities of daily living, cognitive function, and prosthetic POPs. No significant relationships were detected between mortality and comorbid conditions, number of teeth, and POPs. The multivariate logistic regression showed that the adjusted odds ratios for prosthetic POPs was 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.75–0.96) with regard to mortality.
Conclusions: Our results showed that restoration of posterior teeth occlusion with dentures may reduce mortality in nursing home residents. This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) 15K20657 from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan.