Relationship between Oral-Dental Health Status with Chronic Systemic Diseases and Salivary IgA Level in Elderly Population: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background and Aim: The importance of oral and dental health is more in the elderly than other age groups and various factors can affect it. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of oral and dental health in the elderly with the amount of salivary immunoglobulin-A (IgA), the presence of chronic and systemic diseases, and some demographic indicators such as age, gender, residential place, marital status, economic status, compliance with oral and dental hygiene, smoking and educational level. It seems that the aforementioned factors are related to the oral and dental health of the elderly. Materials and Methods: In this systematic review we searched Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed and SID databases for Persin and English articles between 2010 and 2020. Finally, 19 articles were selected. Results: Based on our literature review, it seems that the presence of age-related diseases, whether chronic or systemic can influence the oral and dental health. Moreover, increased salivary IgA levels could be directly associated with oral and dental problems. Some other factors including better economic status and maintenance of oral and dental health can be related to the improvement of the oral health specially in the elderly. Although, higher education level, city of residence, lack of smoking habit, gender and marital status did not show definite effects on maintaining oral- dental health, but can affect this process. Conclusion: Consequently, self-care educations for maintaining the oral-dental health and also follow up of the old patients with chronic systemic diseases had positive effects on the improvement of the oral and dental health.

Keywords

• oral health
• dental health
• elderly
• salivary iga
• chronic disease
• systemic disease