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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The present study aims to reflect on the oral health status of the elderly, addressing periodontal disease, as well as the importance of oral health, general health and quality of life. The methodology adopted consisted of a bibliographic research of scientific articles indexed in PUBMED® and Google Scholar® with the following combined keywords: “Periodontal Disease”, “Gerodontology”, “Oral Health”, “Elderly” and “Epidemiology”, either in Portuguese or in English. The exclusion criteria for the selection of the scientific articles used consisted in limiting the research to the Portuguese and English languages, limiting the publication date to the last 10 years, and only scientific articles referring to the epidemiology of periodontal disease among the elderly. Therefore, from a total of 33 scientific articles, only 17 scientific articles were selected for the present research. The most recent studies do show that periodontal disease is clearly a public health issue, increasing among all ages. However, this oral pathology should be carefully analyzed among the elderly considering the higher risk of association with the development of other systemic diseases and also the physiological, mental and social changes that characterize this specific age group.