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Updated: Jul 17, 2025

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Association between oral health and cognitive function among Chinese older adults: the Taizhou imaging study
Wenjia Gu1, Jialin Li2, Fei Li1
1Department of Preventive Dentistry, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, College of Stomatology, National Center for Stomatology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, 639 Zhizaoju Road, Shanghai, 200011, China.
Background:
We aimed to investigate the association between oral health and cognitive function in a sample of older adults from a Chinese rural community.
Methods:
The cross-sectional cognitive function of 677 individuals were assessed by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). A comprehensive profile of the oral health status was evaluated by questionnaire and clinical examination.
Results:
Multiple covariates-adjusted regression models demonstrated decayed teeth (DT) and decayed/missing/filled teeth (DMFT) were negatively associated with MoCA score (all p < 0.05). Calculus index (CI) and clinical attachment loss (CAL) were significantly associated with the lower MoCA, short-term memory and executive function score, respectively (all p < 0.05). Additionally, participants with missing teeth unrestored tend to get lower MMSE and MoCA scores (p < 0.05). The results also showed that increased DT and CI were modestly associated with higher odds of cognitive impairment (p < 0.05).
Conclusions:
There is an association between oral health and global cognition. Poor periodontal status was strongly associated with worse global cognition performance, especially in the short-term memory and executive domain for the aging population.
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