Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 14, 2026
Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Eight-year mortality associated with dental occlusion and denture use in community-dwelling elderly persons
Mitsuyoshi Yoshida1, Hidehiko Morikawa, Mineka Yoshikawa
1Department of Advanced Prosthodontics, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Biomedical Science, Hiroshima, Japan. mitsu@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Objective:
To evaluate the influence of dental occlusion, with or without the use of dentures, on mortality in community-dwelling elderly persons.
Subjects:
A total of 1030 randomly selected healthy independent elderly aged 65 and over were surveyed in 1995. For the study reported here, subjects were classified into three groups according to the presence or absence of maxillo-mandibular tooth contacts. Subjects with no maxillo-mandibular tooth contacts were further subdivided into those with and without dentures.
Methods:
Data on mortality were obtained from Kure City Council in September 2003. Cox regression models were used in analysing the risk for death with gender and age as covariates.
Results:
Individuals whose teeth had contact in at least the bilateral premolar regions at baseline had 0.78 times (95% CI: 0.60-0.99) smaller risk for death during the succeeding 8 years than those who had no occlusion. Among those who had no occlusion with their own teeth, the risk for mortality among denture non-users was 1.52 times (95% CI: 1.25-1.83) higher than the risk for denture users.
Conclusion:
These results may support the view that, in the elderly; poor dental occlusion is associated with an increased risk for mortality and that, in the edentulous, the use of dentures is associated with a decreased risk for mortality.
Related Concept Videos
01:15Teeth
In the bud stage, the tooth germ (an aggregation of cells) starts to form in the developing jawbone. During the cap stage, the tooth germ differentiates into enamel organ, dental papilla, and dental sac, which will later develop into the tooth's enamel, dentin and...
01:29Bone Disorders
Bone deposition is also affected by the levels of sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone that promote osteoblast activity and bone matrix synthesis. When the level of these hormones decreases due to aging, it causes a reduction in bone deposition. As a result, bone resorption by osteoclasts...