Need of assistance for maintaining of oral hygiene among institutionalized elderly

The need of help from others in carrying out everyday activities, as well as maintaining the oral hygiene among institutionalized elderly is quite high. With the increasing of the number of elderly, the need for the persons responsible for them to become familiar with the basic aspects and characteristics of oral hygiene in these persons is increasing as well. Oral health care has an even greater and more significant role among institutionalized elderly because there is an association of dental status with mortality and morbidity in the elderly population. The most frequently observed obstacle for good oral hygiene is that caregivers do not consider oral health as a priority or as part of their main responsibilities of hygiene activities for patients. Most of the institutionalized elderly have at least one chronic disease, while the number of individuals in this category with two or more such diseases should not be underestimated. The health of all structures localized in the oral medium is an important socio-medical problem, hence the interest in the etiology and epidemiology of dental caries, periodontitis and other oral diseases. Taking into account the aforementioned facts about oral health, the presence of numerous dental problems, as well as the increased health needs and impaired health of institutionalized elderlypeople, the aim of this paper was to determine the need for assistance in maintaining oral hygiene of institutionalized elderly people. The investigation included a total number of 70 subjects older than 65 years. In these institutions, most of the persons are functionally-dependent individual and have dependence from foreign assistance. We were evaluating the need of assistance for maintaining adequate oral hygiene.Based on the results of this research, it was noted that a large number of institutionalized elderly people (68.5%) have a subjective feeling that they are not capable forindependent living and havesubjective need for help.Although most of the subjects (73.97%) subjectively do not need help in maintaining oral hygiene, the number of personswho need help with tooth brushing was not neglected (26.03%). Of the patients who need help to maintain oral hygiene, only 10.59% of the subjects subjectively assessed their oral health as good or excellent. The mean value of the simplified OHI index (referring to the presence of dental plaque and calculus together) for the research population was 4.24 ± 1.21. However, the biggest problem is the number of people who do not maintain regular oral hygiene (68.5% of the examined elderly). We can conclude from this research that there is a great need of help for every day activities among the institutionalized elderly, especially in carrying out the activities related to the maintenance of the general as well as for the oral hygiene. Also, there is small percentage of people who maintain daily hygiene of the remaining teeth. Keywords: oral hygiene institutionalized elderly, assistance, long-term patients.1.INTRODUCTIONThe number of еlder individuals is growing proportionately much faster than any remaining age group worldwide. It is estimated that by 2050 the percentage of people over 60 in developed countries will reach over 80 percent of the total population.(United Nations Population Division, 2003)These conditions aredue to the increased average life expectancy, which in 1900 was only 47 years, while in 1990 it was 75 years.(World’s Health Organization, 2003)Along with the increasing number of elderly people, their health problems and needs are also increasing. Numerous data confirming this can be seen in the modern scientific literature.The increasing number of elderly people in Western European countries is a serious economic, social and medical problem. Some European countries have decided to raise the retirement age for citizens to deal with the serious problem caused by the growing number of retirees. Prolonged life also leads to increased needs of the elderly population in contextof health, due to which increased costs have both health and insurance companies. As the proportion of older people increased from 16.4 percent in 1975 to 20,75 percent in 2005, highly developed countries pay much more attention to preventive health programs. What these countries canbe proud of is the advanced socia