Oral status and nutrition in the institutionalized elderly

Objectives: To evaluate, in an elderly population, whether poor oral status might be a contributing factor to the development of undernutrition and mi ght be associated with less eating pleasure, more subjective eating difficu lty and increased mashed food consumption. Methods: An oral examination and an evaluation of masticatory capacity were performed on 120 institutionalized elderly subjects. The nutritional asses sment included serum albumin concentration, the Mini Nutritional Assessment and a questionnaire on eating habits. Results: Edentulous subjects without dentures or with only one complete den ture had significantly lower MNA scores than edentulous subjects with two c omplete dentures (p < 0.05). Edentulous subjects with two complete dentures more frequently reported taking pleasure from eating (p = 0.05), and had l ess frequent difficulties with hard foods (p = 0.01) than edentulous subjec ts without dentures or with only one complete denture. Mashed food consumpt ion(p < 0.01) was also reported more frequently in edentulous subjects with out dentures or with only one complete denture. Subjects with two complete dentures had similar or better MNA scores as dentate subjects with relative ly few remaining teeth (10.4 +/- 7.8 teeth). About half of the subjects (53 %) could not perform the masticatory test. These subjects had lower MNA sco res (p = 0.001) and a larger proportion ate mashed food (p < 0.001) compare d to those who were able to perform the test. Conclusions: Poor oral status (edentulous without dentures or with only one complete denture) increased difficulty in eating hard foods, increased mas hed food consumption and decreased eating pleasure. It seemed also to put i nstitutionalized subjects at higher risk of undernutrition. (C) 1999 Elsevi er Science Ltd. All rights reserved.