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Cardiovascular Research Initiative Launched
DENTAL RESEARCH
| Dental Researchers to Study
Oral Health and Dementia |
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| A new project spearheaded by Kavita Ahluwalia, DDS, MPH, assistant professor of dental medicine in the College of Dental Medicine, will study the oral health of people with dementia in long-term care facilities. In conjunction with the Isabella Geriatric Center, Dr. Ahluwalia has been awarded $415,000 over three years by the New York State Department of Health for the project, which addresses an area of geriatric health care that is often ignored. “There are a few fellowships in geriatric dentistry but the field is not a recognized dental specialty and few dentists have the training needed to care for this population,” Dr. Ahluwalia says. Little is known about the state of dental health of people with dementia in long-term care facilities. “We do know that the state of oral health in long-term care facilities is pretty bad,” she says. “People usually are in nursing homes because they are in poor mental or physical shape, or both. They often cannot take care of their own teeth, and nursing home staff are often not trained to care for their patients’ mouths.” While Medicare and state nursing home licensure requirements mandate an oral exam when someone is admitted to a care facility, these requirements are often left open to interpretation. Exams are frequently conducted by nurses not trained in oral health, Dr. Ahluwalia says. Caring for the oral health of people with dementia presents unique challenges. Aggression, agitation, and confusion can make it difficult for caregivers to get near the mouth even to feed a resident, much less brush teeth or care for dentures. “In the dental chair, getting someone with dementia to even keep his or her mouth open can be challenging; if the person clamps down while a drill is running, there can be a severe injury to the patient,” she says. With the new project, Dr. Ahluwalia and her colleague, Gregory Bunza, DDS, assistant professor of clinical dental medicine, will study the oral health status of nursing home residents with dementia and the issues and challenges involved in providing daily care. They will next develop a training curriculum to teach daily caregivers – primarily nurses and nursing assistants – about providing oral health care to people with dementia and test the curriculum’s effectiveness and feasibility of implementation. After a pilot project among some 70-80 residents in the dementia unit of the Kateri Residence, a skilled care facility in Northern Manhattan, Dr. Ahluwalia and Dr. Bunza will test the curriculum at the Isabella Geriatric Center, also in Northern Manhattan. The larger population there will allow for an intervention group and a control group of about 100 subjects each. “We’re hoping that one of the things that will emerge from this intervention is better quality of life for these people, so we will also be looking at measures such as eating and socialization,” says Dr. Ahluwalia. “When people have dementia, they often can’t report things like, ‘My mouth hurts.’ But if patients’ mouths are cleaner, if their nurses are trained to spot trouble early and get them to the dentist, maybe they will be more comfortable, find it easier to eat, and generally feel better.” —Gina Shaw |
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Book Seeks to Raise Awareness of Connection Between Oral Health & General Health in Elderly
with aging. |
