Healthy oral aging, an interdisciplinary approach

Oral health is essential to general health and quality of life. However, due to misconceptions, educational traditions, separate institutions, incompatible patient information systems, and shortage of financing, a worldwide gap exists between medicine and dentistry. This results in lack of focus on oral conditions in patients suffering from general disease and lack of good treatment options. The elderly suffer the most in this gap. Many elderly are frail, multi-morbid, multi-medicated, and susceptible to medical side effects. Reduced salivary secretion is one of the most common side effects to medication. Lack of saliva may lead to very dry mouth, gross tooth decay, mucosal infections, and devastating pain resulting in dramatically reduced quality of life. In the main project, by gathering competences within the areas of dentistry, pharmacy, medicine, and social science, we aim to: -Contribute to improving the standard of oral health care in nursing homes by implementing new routines, digital tools, and increased interaction within healthcare personnel -Develop and test innovative products with long-term effect based on liposomes (nanomedicine) to treat dry mouth and thereby optimize oral health in risk patients -Design, implement, and monitor the research process to increase its chances of influencing policy for changed priorities in oral health and raised public awareness about oral health In the pre-project we have focused on: -Understanding how oral care is dealt with in nursing homes and developing and introducing a digital dental card prototype for nurses responsible for oral care to better understand the patients' dental status and oral hygiene needs -Preliminary investigations regarding the new dry mouth product regarding regulations, texture, and taste -Initial analysis of the oral healthcare innovation system and first draft of a real-time assessment approach for research impact here -Establishment of collaborative and user networks and panels through arranging two seminars and multiple public talks

In collaboration with Institute of Informatics, and University Center of Information Technology (USIT), UiO, a prototype of a digital dental card was developed and preliminary tested. During the fall, USIT will complete the interface towards TSD so that data will be safely stored. The initial testing was very successful, but the digital dental card must be tested in bigger and multiple settings. Experiences from the project underlines that increased interaction within healthcare personnel is mandatory to improving the standard of oral health care in nursing homes. We have already applied for further funding from RCN to use the digital dental card for patients in short-term hospital stays returning to home care in collaboration with the municipality of Alna (in Oslo) and the Public dental service. The work with the dry mouth product has brought us further towards a new product. We have been admitted by the SPARK program and will continue working with developing this new product.

Oral health is essential to general health and quality of life. However, due to misconceptions, educational traditions, separate institutions, incompatible patient information systems, and shortage of financing, a worldwide gap exists between medicine and dentistry. This results in lack of focus on oral conditions in patients suffering from general disease and lack of good treatment options. The elderly suffer the most in this gap. Many elderly are frail, multi-morbid, multi-medicated, and susceptible to medical side effects. Reduced salivary secretion is one of the most common side effects to medication. Lack of saliva may lead to very dry mouth, gross tooth decay, mucosal infections, and devastating pain resulting in dramatically reduced quality of life. In the main project, by gathering competences within the areas of dentistry, pharmacy, medicine, and social science, we aim to: -Contribute to improving the standard of oral health care in nursing homes by implementing new routines, digital tools, and increased interaction within healthcare personnel -Develop and test innovative products with long-term effect based on liposomes (nanomedicine) to treat dry mouth and thereby optimize oral health in risk patients -Design, implement, and monitor the research process to increase its chances of influencing policy for changed priorities in oral health and raised public awareness about oral health The pre-project will focus on: -Establishing data on the oral health situation in nursing homes in Oslo, and introducing a preliminary digital dental card so that nurses who are responsible for oral care better understand the patients’ dental status and oral hygiene needs -Preliminary investigations regarding the new dry mouth product regarding regulations, texture, and taste -Initial analysis of the oral healthcare innovation system and first draft of a protocol to study the impact of research in oral health -Establishment of collaborative and user networks and panels