A REPRESENTATIVE CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF ORAL CONDITIONS AMONG GERIATRIC PATIENTS IN A HOSPITAL SET UP

Abstract

Introduction: Poor oral health among old-age people is an important public health issue and a growing burden to countries worldwide. Geriatrics is one of the most recent and least developed specialties in India. Geriatric dentistry is almost non-existent. There is an increasing demand for geriatric oral healthcare in India. This study reports the investigation of the oral health conditions of the elderly population aged 60 to 80 years of the city of Ghaziabad, Muradnagar, by means of an epidemiological survey about the oral health of these individuals. Aim: This study is aimed at finding the prevalence of oral health conditions and treatment needs among geriatric patients. Settings and Design: The present study (descriptive cross-sectional prevalence study) used codes and criteria WHO for epidemiological surveys in oral health. The target population comprised subjects visiting the Dental Out-Patient Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, ITS Dental College, Murad Nagar, Ghaziabad. Methods and Material: Subjects (N=404) between the ages of 60-80 years were interviewed and examined for oral health according to standard codes prescribed by the World Health Organization proforma. Record of extra-oral information, temporomandibular joint assessment, oral mucosal conditions, CPI (periodontal status formally called Community Periodontal Index of Treatment or CPITN), and loss of attachment was done as per World Health Organization (WHO) prescribed criteria. Statistical analysis used: SPSS software (version 18 ) was used for data evaluation. The data were evaluated with a chi-square test, with p0.05 as the significance cut-off. Results: Results showed that 6.4% of patients exhibited symptoms on TMJ assessment. 3.0% showed signs on TMJ assessment. Oral mucosal conditions were observed in 63.61% of patients out of which 38.86% of lesions were variations of normal mucosa. For periodontal conditions, the number of sextants available for assessment of community periodontal index (CPI) and clinical attachment loss (CAL) was lesser because of the high rate of edentulousness, both complete and partial. Conclusion: The oral health status of the elderly population in Murad Nagar, Ghaziabad is poor. The results of this study may help in planning collective health actions, contributing an accurate description of the oral problems among the elderly in demographic conditions which mimic such conditions and in turn prove beneficial to geriatric patients in such areas.