Caries, tooth loss, and conventional tooth replacement for older patients

Abstract

During the recent decades, industrialized countries have shown an important decline in edentulism and a corresponding increase in the mean number of teeth present among elderly people (Atchieson & Andersen, 2000; Morse, Holm-Pedersen, & Holm-Pedersen, 2002). However, studies still show rather large populations of older with few or no teeth (Kiyak, 2000; Avlund, Holm-Pedersen, & Schroll, 2001). This implies that prevention of oral health problems should be aimed at the growing number of older adults at risk of oral diseases and that caries therapy and prosthetic therapies should be considered and implemented in order to maintain and restore oral function and aesthetics. Because any restorative caries or prosthetic therapies have a short-term or long-term biologic price, such therapies should only be implemented when there is clear evidence that function or aesthetics is invalidated. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.