ORAL HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG INSTITUTIONALIZED AND NON INSTITUTIONALIZED ELDERLY POPULATION IN INDIA- A STRUCTURED REVIEW

Abstract

Dental care and treatment is a greater problem for the institutionalized elderly than for people in the same age group who are not in institutions, which sets them at a greater risk of deterioration in dental and oral health. This is due to a combination of difficulties which include the costs incurred, the lack of oral hygiene offered by homes, the complications of transporting the elderly and the fear of the participants themselves. Aim of the review is to assess the literature existing on Oral health related quality of life of Institutionalized and Non Institutionalized elderly population in India. Data from original scientific papers published in PubMed, PubMed Central and Google Scholar were taken for review. Search was accompanied with keywords like Aged, Geriatrics, Oral health, Institutionalized persons etc and non-MesH terms like Treatment needs, Residential homes. Articles published in English language only were included. References from the identified publications were manually searched to identify additional relevant articles. The systematic search resulted in 953 papers, of which 4 were suitable for the present review.Thus oral health quality of life of elderly residents was poor with more oral disease like caries, gingivitis, periodontitis and most of the residents were edentulous with no dentures.