Oral health of community dwelling older Australian men: The Concord Health and Ageing in Men Project (CHAMP)

Abstract

Background

CHAMP is a cohort study of the health of a representative sample of Australian men aged 70 years and older. The aim of this report is to describe the oral health of these men.

Methods

Oral health was assessed when the men were all aged 78 years or older. Two calibrated examiners conducted a standardised intra-oral assessment. Descriptive data, with means and confidence intervals where appropriate, were analysed by statistical association tests. Participants were excluded from the collection of some periodontal assessments if they had a medical contraindication.

Results

Dental assessments of 614 participants revealed 90 (14.6%) were edentate. Men had a mean of 13.8 (CI 13.2-14.4) missing teeth and 10.3 (CI 9.8-10.8)teeth. Dentate participants had a mean of 1.1(CI 0.9-1.2) teeth with active coronal decay. Participants born in Italy had higher rates of sound teeth and lower rates of filled teeth, while those in the low income group had a higher rate of decayed teeth and lower rate of filled teeth. Thirty-four participants (5.5%) had one or more dental implants, and 66.3%relied on substitute natural teeth for functional occlusion. Of the 296 participants with full periodontal assessments, 90.9% (n=269) had one or more sites with pocket depths ≥3mm, 96.6% (n=286), had one or more sites with clinical attachment loss ≥ 5mm and 90.2% (n=267) had three or more sites with GI ≥ 2 scores.

Conclusions

There was a high prevalence of periodontal diseases and restorative burden of dentitions, which suggests that greater attention needs to be given to prevention and health maintenance in older Australian men.

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