Fukuoka Dental College

Sunshine City

The facts and results of improved oral hygiene among patients at Sunshine City during the 5 years after its establishment are as follows.

In order to objectively evaluate our contribution at Sunshine City on the improvement of oral hygiene, an assessment of Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S, Greene JC and Vermillion JR, 1964) was performed upon admission and after 6 months on the same patients from August 2002 to July 2007. A total of 247 cases comprised of 71 males ( average age 81.3 years) and 176 females (average age 84.7 years) were studied. Underlying diseases of the patients included 217 (87.9%) dementia, 106 (42.9%) cerebrovascular disease, 88 (35.6%) hypertension, 88 (35.6%) bone fracture, 59 (23.9%) heart disease, 23 (9.3%) malignancy, 17 (6.9%) diabetes mellitus, and 12 (4.9%) Parkinson’s disease. After 6 months of admission, the number of patients with excellent and good conditions showed a significant increase from 46 (18.6%) and 87 (35.2%) to 123 (49.8%) and 103 (41.7%), respectively. On the other hand, the number of patients with fair and poor conditions significantly decreased from 61 (24.7%) and 53 (21.5%) to 18 (7.3%) and 3 (1.2%), respectively. At the same time, the average OHI-S values significantly decreased from 2.99 to 1.48. We conclude that upon admission to Sunshine City, oral hygiene improves significantly which may lead to improved ADL (activity of daily life) and QOL (quality of life).

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