Cognitive Function
Reducing vulnerabilities in long-term care
Ontario has struck a commission on long-term care. The UK government did the same before the pandemic. No doubt, there will be other investigations given the terrible clustering of the pandemic in these venues. COVID-19 showed what we already knew — in the words of the Ontario government, “the system is broken”. So if you…
Read MoreThinking about dementia
A recent survey of Americans age 50 to 64, conducted by the University of Michigan reports 37% have been touched within their families by dementia. Almost half of respondents thought they would develop dementia in their lifetimes.
Read MoreOral inflammatory load and dementia care
A new article on managing dementia suggests there is a pyramid of needs for this progressive disease (see the chart).
Read MoreReducing medical costs
In this new age of containing medical costs, it seems the ultimate argument and purpose for oral health services is better overall health. For example, note this excerpt form a recent blog in Health Affairs, an influential journal in organizing the healthcare system: “Periodontal disease treatment can reduce medical costs in patients with diabetes, coronary artery disease, and cerebral vascular disease. Gum disease is strongly linked to poor cognitive brain function among patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The risk of developing dementia has been found to be higher in those with periodontitis than those without it.”
Read MoreRewriting the job description
Sometimes new science and discoveries come along to rewrite the job description for an industry or profession. Think of the Internet and its redefinition of the community library, for example.
A similar situation may well be emerging in hygiene– er, let’s call it oral healthcare for reasons given below.
Recently, the bidirectional linkage between oral health and cognitive decline has heated up. If your patients haven’t already asked you about it, read this article.
Read MoreCognitive Function and Oral Health
The connection between oral health and cognitive function is intriguing, and seemingly is getting clearer. For example, a new prospective Japanese study of seniors living in the community reports that those with fewer teeth, were 3 times more likely to have a decline in cognitive function over 4 years, than those with more teeth. In…
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