'Don't forget the mouth!' Interprofessional collaboration for good oral health of community-dwelling frail older people with and without dementia

The general aim of this thesis is to assess oral health care for community-dwelling frail older people with and without dementia by evaluating the role of interprofessional collaborations and the involvement of informal caregivers. The studies in this thesis focused on a scoping literature review, a process evaluation of a national public oral health project ‘Don’t forget the mouth!’(DFTM!), and examining the feasibility of tools to assess oral health for informal caregivers, and health care professionals.
The scoping literature review highlighted the limited numbers of studies in oral health care services. The process evaluation of the oral health care project showed that interprofessional collaboration has the potential to improve oral health care but several barriers still existed. The key factor to improve the collaboration is to increase awareness for good oral health. In addition, the tools to assess oral health showed that involvement of informal caregivers, and other health care professionals may further help improve oral health in community-dwelling frail older people. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the need for more education in geriatric dentistry and further research.
Oral health could easily be overlooked, and not be considered a priority among other health care disciplines. The collaboration between health care professionals, informal care givers, and frail older people is key to raising awareness of oral health, facilitate oral health care, and highlight the need for research in community-dwelling frail older people with and without dementia. Together, this will ensure that we do not forget the mouth.