Telemonitoring of the oral health condition of people with Parkinson's disease during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: The elderly are among those most affected by Covid-19, and among them are people with Parkinson's disease. Social distancing, due to the coronavirus, has led to new strategies and tools for health monitoring. Objective: To describe the oral health conditions, using telemonitoring, of people with Parkinson's disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Material and method: This is an analytical, quantitative, cross-sectional study. The tool used was the video call. The telephone contacts (n=154) were obtained from lists of patients in the Pro-Parkinson Extension Program at the Federal University of Pernambuco. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather sociodemographic data and daily oral hygiene practices for teeth and dentures, and whether or not the participant needed dental treatment, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Result: The final sample consisted of 64 Parkinsonian patients. Regarding oral health care, the frequency of hygiene in this period was three times a day among 48.44% of participants, with toothbrush and toothpaste being the items most used for this task. More than half of the sample used dental prostheses. The most common oral health problems during this isolation period were pain, mouth sores and the need for tooth extraction. Conclusion: Telemonitoring was essential because it was noted that these patients were deficient in their knowledge of basic hygiene practices and in information on oral health, as well as in the care of dental prostheses.