Abstract
Objectives : In aging society, the oral health care of the elderly is viewed as one of primary factors to affect their quality of life, and it’s required to acquire information on how to maintain and promote oral health. The purpose of this study was to examine the state of elderly people’s self-perceived dental caries and periodontal diseases, which were typical oral diseases, based on the results of the 2005(third) national health and nutrition survey in an effort to lay the solid foundation for policy setting and project execution for senior oral health care. Methods: The subjects in this study were 1,013 senior citizens. After 3,730 senior citizens who were interviewed to evaluate their health state were selected, 1,097 elderly people who accounted for a third and were surveyed to assess their health consciousness were selected again. Out of them, 1,013 people whose nutritional status was checked were finally selected. The collected data were analyzed with SAS 9.1 program. The findings of the study were as follows: Results: 1. Regarding links between oral health status and self-perceived dental caries over the past year, the elderly people who were in good subjective oral health found themselves to have 2.648-fold more dental caries than the others who were in bad subjective oral health. As to the impact of the presence or absence of teeth, those who had no teeth considered themselves to suffer from 2.065-fold more dental caries than their counterparts who had. The elderly people who had no denture deemed themselves to have 2.877-fold more dental caries than the others who had, and those who had no problems with chewing considered themselves to have 3.178-fold more dental caries than the others who had the problems(p<0.001). 2. As for relationship between oral status and self-perceived periodontal diseases, those who were in bad subjective oral health found themselves to have 3.827-fold more periodontal diseases than the others who were in good subjective oral health(p<0.05). Those who had no teeth considered themselves to suffer from 2.077-fold more periodontal diseases than the others who had(p<0.01). The elderly people who had no denture deemed themselves to have 2.192-fold more periodontal diseases than the others who had, and those who had no problems with chewing considered themselves to suffer from 4.147-fold more periodontal diseases than the others who had the problems(p<0.001). Conclusions: Based on the above results, the systematic oral health education needs to be performed that can promote oral health in order to enhance quality of life in the elderly. And, it is considered that even the local self-government needs to expand the health medical treatment for the aged population and to support the positive and diverse oral health programs.