Assessment of oral health conditions of institutionalized elderly

Abstract

Introduction: With the increase in life expectancy, it is expected that the elderly population will become more and more present in society. For this reason, it is important to recognize the health needs of this group of people who live institutionalized, so that geriatric dentistry acts more actively and proceeds more effectively, meeting the demands prioritizing a better quality of life. Objective: To identify the main alterations that affect the oral cavity of institutionalized elderly. Methodology: An integrative review was carried out in the LILACS, BBO, IBECS, SciELO and PubMed databases. The descriptors were used “Saúde do Idoso Institucionalizado”, “idoso” e “odontologia” together with its synonyms and variations in English, taken from DeCS and MeSH. The inclusion criteria were original articles, articles in Portuguese, English and Spanish, studies involving people and without restriction regarding the year of publication. Animal studies, book chapters, literature review, theses and dissertations were excluded. Results: 555 records were identified. Of these, 15 articles were selected to compose the review. Several oral alterations were found. The main ones were tissue hyperplasia, stomatitis and xerostomia, candidiasis and halitosis. The main causative factors being: poor oral hygiene, medications used and poor adaptation of dental prostheses. Conclusions: Considering the analysis results of this systematic review, it can be concluded that tissue hyperplasia, stomatitis, xerostomia are the most predominant changes in institutionalized elderly.