Resumo

BRENES, William  e  HOFFMAISTER, Federico. Situaciones de salud bucal en personas adultas mayores: problemas y desafíos. Rev. costarric. cienc. méd [online]. 2004, vol.25, n.3-4, pp.27-41. ISSN 0253-2948.

Situation of oral health in elderly people: problems and challenges. The goal of the investigation is to identify the condition of oral health on elderly people. The research was developed by the recognition of personal oral health care, also evaluating the quality of dental prosthesis and the use of dental medical services on elderly people who attends clubs of social interaction in Costa Rica. The inquiry was developed through a prevalence study with the participation of 234 elderly people, male and female. All the participants are active members of 15 social clubs. The groups-or social clubs- where stratified by geographic and social conditions, related with the surroundings conditions, especially location. The results reveled by the investigation are: a) From the studied population elderly people, 53% has been lost the totality of their teeth, 38,4% has partial dental loss that requires a rehabilitation dental prosthesis for satisfy the chew capacity, b) From the elderly people who conserve a tooth at least, the active decay is prevalent in 77,7% and 52,9% have periodontal illness, 83,5% have a deficient control of the dental plaque, c) The evaluation of dental prosthesis results are that 63,9% of the superior dental prosthesis and 74,2% of the inferior dental prosthesis, need repairmen or being replaced. The most relevant conclusion of the research is elderly people oral healthcare can be catalogued as serious problem of public health. The accumulation of injuries by oral and dental problems reveled on the research, indicates that elderly adults require an expansion of dental medical service as well as preventing education actions of reduce the factors of risk of the oral diseases and stomatology prevalence in the elderly population.

Palavras-chave : aging; oral epidemiology; use of dental services.