RESEARCH ARTICLE
Need of Assistance with Daily Oral Hygiene Measures Among Nursing Home Resident Elderly Versus the Actual Assistance Received from the Staff
Marianne Forsell1, Petteri Sjögren2, *, Olle Johansson3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 241
Last Page: 244
Publisher ID: TODENTJ-3-241
DOI: 10.2174/1874210600903010241
Article History:
Received Date: 11/6/2009Revision Received Date: 20/10/2009
Acceptance Date: 6/11/2009
Electronic publication date: 30/12/2009
Collection year: 2009

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The aim was to evaluate the need of assistance with daily oral hygiene measures among nursing home resident elderly versus the actual assistance received from the staff. The need of daily oral hygiene assistance was assessed descriptively for nursing home resident elderly who participated in an annual oral health screening in three geographical regions in Sweden, in the year 2008. All individuals of age ≥ 65 years were included (n = 22,453; 6,327 men; 16,126 women). The proportion of individuals in need of assistance with daily oral hygiene measures was 77.5 % (n=22,453), whereas the proportion of individuals receiving assistance with daily oral hygiene measures was 6.9 % in total (n=22,453). The proportions were largely similar in all geographical regions. There seems to be a large discrepancy between the need of assistance with daily oral hygiene measures, and the oral hygiene assistance received, among nursing home resident elderly.