Educating dental students to provide compassionate age friendly care for older adults

Abstract

As the world population ages, the need for age friendly care increases. In dentistry, age friendly care requires an appropriate comprehension of multiple factors that can be categorized in socio-economic circumstances, systemic health problems, and oral health conditions. In addition to the understanding of these factors and its relationships among each other, the future dental workforce should also be aware of unconscious and pervasive societal stereotypical perception of older persons, aging, and being old, which results in ageism and ageist attitudes. Dental schools can play an important role on raising ageism awareness and combating ageism in healthcare, thus preparing the future of the dental workforce to provide compassionate age friendly care. This paper will discuss ageism in dental schools and learning strategies used to combat it and increase compassionate care delivery for older adults.