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Updated: Jul 6, 2025
Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Longitudinal association between oral function and underweight onset among community-dwelling older adults: Role of
Yuta Kubo1, Keisuke Fujii2, Taiji Noguchi3,4
1Division of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Rehabilitation and Care, Seijoh University, Tokai, Aichi, Japan.
Aims:
Regular self-weighing is effective in weight management and may help to mitigate the risk of underweight among older adults. We examined which factors of oral function are associated with a risk for underweight among community-dwelling older adults and whether regular self-weighing can mitigate that risk.
Methods:
This was a cohort study. Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to 7665 older adults in March 2019 (response rate 74.3%) and 7591 in March 2020 (response rate 74.7%). Among those who responded to both surveys, 3594 older adults who were not underweight in March 2019 were included (follow-up rate: 59.2%). We examined the association between dysphagia, poor masticatory function, and dry mouth and the development of underweight, and whether regular self-weighing reduced the risk for underweight.
Results:
The average age ± standard deviation of participants was 71.1 ± 3.4 years. There was a significant association between swallowing difficulty and the occurrence of underweight (odds ratio = 1.65, p = .012). However, this relationship did not differ significantly with regular self-weighing (p = .477).
Conclusions:
These study findings suggest that to prevent underweight among community-dwelling older adults, it is important to focus on those with poor swallowing function.
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