Infrequent Denture Cleaning Increased the Risk of Pneumonia among Community-dwelling Older Adults: A Population-based Cross-sectional Study

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 13734 - 6
• Main Authors: Kusama, Taro, Aida, Jun, Yamamoto, Tatsuo, Kondo, Katsunori, Osaka, Ken
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 24.09.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 692/700/3032/3099/3118; 692/700/3032/3125; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Cleaning; Cross-Sectional Studies; Denture, Complete; Denture, Partial, Removable; Dentures; Female; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Incidence; Independent Living; Logistic Models; Male; multidisciplinary; Older people; Oral Health; Oral Hygiene - methods; Pneumonia; Pneumonia - etiology; Population studies; Population-based studies; Risk; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-50129-9

Pneumonia is a leading cause of death among older adults. The effectiveness of oral care in preventing pneumonia in nursing homes and hospitals has been reported. However, in community-dwelling older adults, the role of denture cleaning in preventing pneumonia remains unknown. We aimed to investigate the association between infrequent denture cleaning and the risk of pneumonia in community-dwelling older adults. This cross-sectional study was based on the self-reported questionnaire targeting towards community-dwelling older adults aged ≥65 years. Responses of 71,227 removable full/partial denture users were included. The incidence of pneumonia within the last one-year and the frequency of denture cleaning (daily/non-daily) were treated as dependent and independent variables, respectively. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated by the inverse probability weighting (IPW) method based on the logistic regression model. The mean age of the participants was 75.2 ± 6.5 years; 48.3% were male. Overall, 4.6% of the participants did not clean their dentures daily; 2.3% and 3.0% who did and did not clean their dentures daily, respectively, experienced pneumonia. After IPW, infrequent denture cleaning was significantly associated with pneumonia incidence (OR = 1.30, 95% CI = 1.01–1.68)). This study suggests that denture cleaning could prevent pneumonia among community-dwelling older adults.