Can symptom awareness of the elderly be a clue to find oral diseases and promote oral health behaviors

This study aimed to clarify (1) what kind of symptoms the elderly were aware of, (2) the relationship between those symptoms and oral diseases, and (3) the relationship between those symptoms and oral health behaviors. Subjects consisted of 459 individuals 60 years and over, who were asked about subjective symptoms and oral health behaviors, and given an oral health examination. Findings were: (1) even though most subjects (75.2%) had the subjective symptoms, 55.7% of them did not think of them as health problems, (2) logistic regression analysis revealed that those who had subjective symptoms were at higher risk to have decayed teeth, periodontitis, and missing teeth (p < 0.01–0.05), and (3) the elderly who had oral complaints or the subjective symptoms used an interdental brush or a dental floss much more often than those who did not (p < 0.05). However, the elderly who had the oral complaint showed negative responses towards the visiting dentists (p < 0.05).