Can prosthodontic treatment improve mortality in various life stages?

Abstract

While dentists routinely provide prosthodontic treatment in patients with teeth missing, we do not fully understand its effectiveness on their lives. Maintaining oral function by prosthodontic treatment enables patients to intake a variety of foods and nutrition. Through the advantage, prosthodontic treatment can not only improve oral health related quality of life, but also prevent long-term care and frailty, and cognitive decline in independent community-dwelling older individuals. In this article, we introduce the evidences from the results of recent high quality systematic reviews and original articles, that depict higher number of present teeth can improve their life prognosis more in community-dwelling older individuals. Additionally, the joint research by Japan Prosthodontic Society and Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology also demonstrated that number of functional teeth can more strongly predicts all-cause mortality than number of present teeth in those individuals. In older people at the earlier stage requiring support/long-term care, mastication and dysphagia rehabilitation combined with nutritional therapy is also important as well as routine prosthodontic restoration, while in significantly disabled older people at the latter stage requiring long-term care, adjustment of eating environment and food texture as well as dietary supplements administration combining with various nutritional intake routes are important. By interpreting clinical evidences according to various life stages, we would like to emphasize that medical and social responsibilities of prosthodontic specialists are pivotal at any life stage.