Geriatric Patients: Data on Dental Problems at this Age

Introduction: As the age increases, the frequency of hearing loss, visual impairment, cataract and glaucoma is increased. Most of the geriatric patients suffer from at least one chronic disease. The aim of the study is the evaluation of the presence of dental problems in geriatric age and comparison of the frequency of lesion manifestations of pre-geriatric age. Material and methods: In a sample of 73 ad-hoc presented patients, at the University Clinic, Albanian University, for dental treatments, data on the oral status of geriatric patients were collected over a period of 2 weeks, 7-21 May 2019. The conditions for inclusion in the study were the age of the patient, 50 years and over. The mean age of geriatric age is 65 years, but the age of the study was decided to compare the elements of dental problems before the geriatric age, such as a pre-geriatric specimen or geriatric pathologies. Patients were evaluated for age, degree of education, number of teeth in the oral cavity, number of replaceable teeth, number of teeth with caries in the tooth crown, number of denture teeth in the tooth root, number of teeth with gingival recession 3 or more mm. etc. Results: Regardless of the age distribution, almost 55% of the oral cavities are full of natural tooth, the fixed prosthesis is at the highest level at age 50-65 years. Independently of the gender, the average age of the patients involved  is  almost the same 67 years. Crown caries expresses the highest level of 14% at oral cavity at 66-90 years of age, caries of root amounted to 14% of oral cavity at 50-65 years of age. Xerostomia appears at 13% in the age 50-65 years, and 20% in the age of 66-90. Gingival recession and loss of attachment express the highest values at male patients, with a value over 3mm. Conclusions: At geriatric patients, the aim should be to reduce the number of bacteria in the mouth and the mechanical cleaning of the teeth. At pre-geriatric age, it is more common the appearance of caries of the crown than in the geriatric age, where the most common is the caries of the roots of teeth. This fact is supported by the addition and agitation of xerostomia in the oral cavity, which increases with age. The pre-geriatric age still has naturally occurring oral cavity that can be used for fixed prosthetics. At the age of geriatric patients, the total prosthetic replacement takes the highest weight.