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In nursing homes across the country, residents like Mr. Piercy are plagued by cavities, gum disease and cracked teeth, in part because their mouths are not kept clean. While residents now require more dental care than in the past, nursing home employees are rarely prepared to provide it. Aides are swamped with other tasks, and when older charges must be helped to the toilet, fed or repositioned in bed, brushing their teeth often falls to the bottom of the to-do list.
Even when care is available, few staff members are trained to cope with the rising numbers of residents with dementia who resist routine dental hygiene.
“I always say you can measure quality in a nursing home by looking in people’s mouths, because it’s one of the last things to be taken care of,” said Dr. Judith A. Jones, chairwoman of the department of general dentistry at Boston University. “Aides change someone’s Depends, change a catheter or turn somebody every few hours, but teeth often don’t get brushed twice a day.”
The neglect can lead to terrible pain for the residents. Worse, new studies suggest that this problem may be contributing to another:pneumonia, a leading killer of institutionalized older people.