[The dental health of institutionalized elderly patients: from awareness to action]

Too often survey reports, studies and well advised considerations by health researchers follow one another and pile up without any real application in the day-to-day life. For example, most health professionals and health care workers and even the public in general have deplored the fact, when they read the study done by Brodeur and Simard in 1982 on the dental health of the elderly, that 72 per cent of the Quebecers of 65 years of age and older were edentulous. Yet, since this study has been published, there has been no blitz or systematic action to improve the dental health of the elderly. Unless I'm mistaken, efforts were made mostly to promote prevention among the younger generations. In the Quebec Province, the works of Dr Vallée have of course fostered some progress in the field of Geriatric Dentistry. However, it must be said again that real positive actions for the elderly patients remain few if not exceptional. Perhaps are we right when we say that seniors as a social group are somewhat neglected. Perhaps also do we consider them as a group for which there is not much left to be done... In reality, dental healthwise, is there anything better than to wish for the young generations not to have the deplorable fate of the elderly?