Decayed, missing, and filled teeth among elderly people in a Norwegian municipality.
The purpose of the present study was to describe and analyze the prevalence of decayed, missing, and filled teeth among dentate non-institutionalized and institutionalized old-age pensioners from the same population. A random sample of 430 persons was drawn from the total population of pensioners in Skedsmo (N = 3072), yielding 159 non-institutionalized with their own teeth as one study group. The second study group consisted of all dentate elderly institutionalized persons (n = 38) from the same municipality. Of the non-institutionalized pensioners 48% had untreated caries lesions (DT = 1.1), and 87% had one or more fillings (FT = 8.8). The mean number of MT was 14.1. The oldest non-institutionalized pensioners (80+ years) had more MT and fewer FT than the younger ones (67-79 years). Only small differences in DT, MT, and FT were seen between the sexes in the youngest age group, whereas in the oldest age group (80+) the men had more DT and fewer FT than the women. Dental visiting habits and age were the most important predictors of DT%. The multivariate models provided best fit for FT% (R2 = 27%), DT% came second (R2 = 15%), and poorest fit was observed for DMFT (R2 = 2%). The institutionalized persons had more DT, MT, and residual roots, higher DMFT, but fewer FT than the non-institutionalized ones. Among the institutionalized pensioners a somewhat different sex-related pattern emerged; women tended to have lower DMFT and fewer residual roots than had men, regardless of age.
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D000368:Aged; D004245:DMF Index; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology; D003793:Dental Restoration, Permanent; D006801:Humans; D007326:Institutionalization; D009664:Norway; D010415:Pensions; D011897:Random Allocation; D014505:Urban Population