Abstract
The recent increase in the proportion of elderly persons among patients seen at the Department of Dentistry of Kanazawa National Hospital led us to conduct a survey of disease states and contents of treatment in those elderly patients for the year of 1982. The results were summarized as follows:
1. Of entire 1412 patients seen during that year, 261 (113 male, 148 female), or 18.5%, were above 60 years of age. 2. Of these 261, 161 (62%) visited the hospital directly and 100 (38%) on referral. Among these latter 100 patients, 79 were referred to us from other departments of the same hospital and the remaining 21 from outside. Most frequently the referring physician was an internist. 3. Chief complaints at the time of first examination were masticating trouble relating to denture in 38% of the elderly patients, pains in 36%, caries (indolent) in 12%, swelling in 6% and others in 8%. 4. At the time of first examination 163 (62%) had a single or multiple non-dental diseases, with 32% of them suffering from cardiovascular diseases and 17% from digestive diseases. 5. Ninety-four patients (36%) had been operated on, with 41% of them for digestive diseases and 14% for neoplasms. 6. One hundred and twelve patients (43%) had a history of illness treated by non-operative measures, the overall incidence of such diseases being 152. 7. Average numbers per person of untreated decayed teeth D, treated decayed teeth F, healthy teeth T and lost teeth M were 2, 4, 7 and 19, respectively; M was increasing with advancing age. 8. Forty-three % of the elderly patients were affected with periodontal diseases; as the affected teeth were lost, the disease per se was terminated, while the incidences of gingivitis and collapsing periodontal diseases decreased with advancing age. 9. As regards the contents of treatment given, 151 patients (58%) received prosthesis and the remainder 127 (49%) were treated surgically, with the ratio of open to closed treatment being 2:1 in terms of frequency. Conservative treatment was given in 75 (29%). 10. The duration of treatment averaged 6.2 days, being 1-4 days in 52%, 5-8 days in 23%, and 9-33 days in 25% of patients. 11. In 112 patients (42.9%) treatment was covered totally by insurance. An overall study was further made by taking account of all these findings together.
