Periodontal health status in the elderly with different levels of education: a 5-year follow-up study.

Objective: To assess the association between the periodontal health status and level of education over a 5-year period among the elderly aged 75 years and older.
Background: Oral health among the higher educated is known to be better than among the less-well educated. On the other hand, the prevalence and severity of periodontal disease has been found to grow with increasing age.
Methods: The participants were derived from a population-based Helsinki Aging Study, a random sample of 76-, 81- and 86-year-old elderly. The 170 dentate elderly who underwent clinical oral examinations at baseline and 71 who participated in the follow-up were included in this study. The data was collected from intraoral and radiological examinations and from a structured questionnaire.
Results: Subjects with a higher level of education had more retained teeth than subjects with a lower level of education. According to CPITN index, better-educated participants had more healthy sextants, but they also had more sextants with periodontal pockets. Radiographic examination showed similar results.
Conclusion: Level of education has a clear effect on the periodontal health status in the elderly. More treatment need seems to polarise into those elderly who are better educated as they retain more teeth into old age.
(© 2011 The Gerodontology Society and John Wiley & Sons A/S.)