EVALUATION OF ELDERLY PATIENTS ADAPTATION TO REMOVABLE DENTURES

In the elderly and senile age the need for medical care, including dental care, increases. The untimely appeal for dental care entails a change in the KPI index, as a result of which a partial or complete loss of teeth occurs. Complete absence of teeth is accompanied by morphofunctional changes of all elements of the dentoalveolar system and by significant decrease in chewing ability. Providing orthopedic dental care to the elderly, senile and old people is not easy due to the peculiarities of adaptation to removable dentures. In this study the impact of removable dentures on the quality of life of a dental patient was assessed. The study involved two identical patient groups of 17 people. The age of the patients was 61 to 75 years. All patients needed removable prosthetics. Before the prosthetics, a questionnaire was conducted using the OHIP-14 questionnaire. The questionnaire showed the level of the patients' satisfaction with their dental health. Then proceed to prosthetics. In the first group, the prosthesis was manufactured using a standard method. In the second group, the imprint was removed using a modified individual spoon, which should improve adaptation to a removable denture. The second questionnaire was conducted using the OHIP-14 questionnaire 33 days after the prosthesis, when all patients had complete adaptation to a removable denture. The questionnaire was conducted in order to reveal the dynamics of the quality of life of the patients. The results showed the effectiveness of the proposed method. The number of patients with a good quality of life in group 2 increased by 58.8% and in group 1 only by 34.5%. Thus, in group 2 adaptation to removable dentures was faster. Keywords: gerontology, removable denture, quality of life, orthopedic dentistry