Course Overview

A deep dive into common oral healthcare issues in older adults and providing best-practice oral health assessments and care.

Topics

• Defining oral healthcare and its significance
• Common oral health issues in older adults
• Best practices and assessment tools
• Older adult case studies

Need

In 2022, poor oral health contributed approximately 4.5% of the non-fatal burden of disease in Australians. Moreover, oral health is linked with other health complications such as stroke, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, aspiration pneumonia and other chronic conditions.

Oral care in older adults over the age of 65 is in most cases preventable and treatable. However, a lack of sufficient resources and understanding in the nursing profession can lead to neglect of this aspect of care.

Therefore, it is crucial for healthcare professionals to understand the importance of oral hygiene when caring for older patient groups in order to further recognise and escalate care concerns to prevent harm. An up-to-date understanding of the most common issues and subsequent treatment pathways for patients during this period is essential in order to inform best clinical practice.

Purpose

The purpose of this Ausmed Course is to provide an enhanced understanding of the importance of oral health promotion and oral health care considerations specific to older adults, in order to best support patient outcomes, improve nursing practice and reduce harm.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the key principles of maintaining good oral health.
• Describe the key risk factors that contribute to poor oral health in older adults and be able to suggest strategies for reducing risk.
• Identify the implications of poor oral health in older adults and be able to link this with the impact on overall health and quality of life.
• Apply evidence-based best practices for oral care in older adults, including strategies for preventing and managing common oral health issues.
• Develop and implement well-rounded oral care plans for older adults and understand how to evaluate the effectiveness of such plans.

Target Audience

Nurses, care workers and other healthcare professionals working with older adults who are looking to increase their understanding of the unique challenges that this population group may face with oral care.

Disclosure

No conflict of interest exists for anyone in the position to control content for this activity. Wherever possible, generic or non-proprietary names of medications or products have been used.

Educators

Presented by

Laura Thompson View profile

Laura is a certified Speech Pathologist, graduating with a Master’s Degrees from London in 2012. She is a Senior Clinician for NSW Health and Director and Principal Speech Pathologist at Nulingua Speech Pathology. Laura is a sessional academic and clinical educator at Australian Catholic University.

Peer reviewed by

Gauri Godbole View profile