Dental Health Care and Its Related Regime in Japan

Abstract

Poor dental health deteriorates Quality of Life. In addition, annual medical expense for dental diseases in 2010 were 2.6 trillion yen, second among common diseases such as malignant neoplasm (3.5 trillion yen), hypertension, (1.9 trillion yen), cerebrovascular disease (1.8 trillion yen), and diabetes mellitus (1.2 trillion yen). The enhancement of dental health is therefore also a financial issue in Japan. Recently, the government has started to prepare legislation for dental health promotion to reduce health inequality and resolve financial problems. In the last several decades, dental health has dramatically changed. Dental caries in children have been decreasing year by year and the proportion of the aged population with 20 teeth or more has grown. On the other hand, new findings providing evidence of a significant relationship between tooth loss and periodontal disease and systemic diseases have been presented in many epidemiological studies. Thus, dental services should be provided towards controlling oral infection and prolonging tooth survival for adult or geriatric populations. However, dental services still mainly consist of prosthetic treatment, probably due to the piece work payment system in Japan. Currently, dental services for subjects requiring long-term care or perioperative care are the most urgent need. Dental practitioners with limited experience of these situations, have begun to empirically accumulate knowledge and master dental techniques. Collaboration of all kinds of professionals such as legal experts, sociologists, politicians, economists as well as medical/dental providers will be needed in order to establish an adequate regime in dental services.