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Dental‐related function and oral health in relation to eating performance in assisted living residents with and without cognitive impairment
Author(s) -
Liu Wen,
Shaw Clarissa,
Chen Xi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
special care in dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.328
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1754-4505
pISSN - 0275-1879
DOI - 10.1111/scd.12405
Subject(s) - medicine , oral health , logistic regression , cognition , multilevel model , psychological intervention , observational study , gerontology , clinical psychology , dentistry , psychiatry , pathology , machine learning , computer science
Aims Despite the physiologic relationship, there is a lack of evidence on how dental‐related function and oral health impact eating performance. This study aims to examine the association of eating performance with dental‐related function and oral health among assisted living residents. Methods and results This study was a secondary analysis of observational data collected from an instrument development study. Participants included 90 residents with normal to severely impaired cognition from three assisted livings. Multilevel mixed‐effects ordered logistic models were used. The dependent variable was eating performance measured by the single “eating” item (scored from 0 to 4 on level of dependence). Independent variables were resident age, gender, dental‐related function, and oral health. The resident and facility clustering effects accounted for 88% of variance in eating performance, among which 84% was explained by dental‐related function and oral health. Eating performance was associated with dental‐related function (coefficient = −0.10, 95% CI = −0.19, −0.01, P = .025), and was not associated with other characteristics. Conclusion Eating performance is influenced by the complex relationship with dental‐related function and oral health. Novel interventions using interdisciplinary partnerships are needed to maintain dental‐related function and oral health to optimize eating performance.