Domiciliary assistance dental programs: a current demand

• Published in: Atención primaria Vol. 34; no. 7; pp. 368 - 373
• Main Authors: Gil Montoya, J A, Subirá Pifarré, C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Spain 31.10.2004
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Costs and Cost Analysis; Delivery of Health Care; Dental Care - economics; Dental Care - methods; Dental Care - standards; Health Services Needs and Demand; Home Care Services; Humans; Middle Aged; Nursing Homes - economics; Program Evaluation
• ISSN: 0212-6567

The growing demand of dental treatment by institutionalised and community-dwelling older adults has made necessary to develop and to evaluate domiciliary dental care programmes. Delivering and economic evaluation of comprehensive oral health care treatment to older adults living at home or in geriatric centres, with problems of transportation. A domiciliary dental care program in a nursing home and in a group of people receiving domiciliary care has been develop. During a 10 and 5 month period and working with 210 and 47 patients respectively, a dentist and hygienist treated the basic dental needs with portable instruments. In spite of the advantages of those programmes, they have a lot of problems such as the economic costs (25,000 Euros in the nursing home and 16,700 in their own house), the dental treatment limitations and the few patients you can visit in one day. The development of domiciliary dental care treatment programmes suppose high economics cost that we must pay attention.