Impact of oral frailty on general frailty in geriatric population: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Oral health is believed to be an important component of aging and frailty. Poor oral health is highly prevalent among older adults and has been linked to general health and chronic diseases including different components of frailty. Literature previous evidence has demonstrated a strong link between self-reported oral health and nutrition. Objectives: The objective of the study was to find the current impacts of oral frailty on general frailty in geriatric population. Sources of Evidence: A systematic search was conducted in one electronic bibliographic database (PubMed) to identify relevant peer-reviewed studies. Sources included different types of information such as practice guidelines, reviews, and quantitative and qualitative research. Charting Methods: Pie charts, sunburst, and tree map were used. Results: The searches from the databases hit a total of 8697 records (PubMed: 180) that led to a total of 180 titles and abstracts that were screened after the removal of duplicates. We retrieved a total of 55 full-text articles from our different libraries. Six records were excluded with full text. The full-text screening stage led to 49 potential articles relevant to our scoping review. A total of 49 articles (39 quantitative and 3 qualitative studies, 6 reviews, and 1 Practice guidelines) were included in our final analysis. Maximum studies were found in Asia (44.8%), Europe (22.4%), and North America (14.2%) of the articles related to Oral frailty on General frailty. The included articles used a variety of terminology to describe physical and oral Frailty. The prevalence of physical frailty ranged from 1.5% to 66.6% and oral frailty ranged from 4.1% to 63.7%. Conclusions: Oral frailty is a crucial aspect of general frailty. More cohort studies need to establish a causal relationship between oral and physical frailty. Medical–dental collaboration is inadequate and should be improved in geriatric medicine.