A PhD completed. Oral health care and oral health-related quality of life of frail and care-dependent older people

Abstract

When older people become frail, they often give up making dental visits, while their oral health care and oral health deteriorate. Open interviews and questionnaires were used to explore why frail older people change their oral health care behaviour and which (frailty-related) factors contribute to this change. These are mainly motivation-related factors. There seems to be a turning point where frail older people discontinue their oral health care routines and stop caring whether or not they loose teeth, because the perceived efforts no longer outweigh the perceived benefits of making dental visits and upkeep of oral hygiene. The use of standard questionnaires such as the validated Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index-NL to measure oral health-related quality of life is limited, because they do not provide personal context required to interpret the outcomes. From a pre-frail stage (oral) care providers should monitor specific factors that might negatively affect oral health and oral health care behaviour, like chronic pain or diminished mobility, dexterity, cognition, will to live, energy and social support.