A study aiming to decide if the substitution of lacking enamel with fastened prostheses could guard towards cognitive decline was presented at the 52nd Once-a-year Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, in conjunction with the 47th Once-a-year Assembly of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Conference & Exhibition took location at the Oregon Convention Heart in Portland on March 15-18, 2023.
The research by Elizabeth Kaye of Boston College examined 577 adult males in the VA Normative Getting older Research (NAS) and Dental Longitudinal Analyze. Tooth standing and style of substitute, if any, were recorded at triennial dental examinations (1969-2001). Masticatory performance was assessed with carrot chewing tests. The Spatial Copying Process (SCT) was administered up to 4 times in between 1995 and 2001. The investigators described lousy cognition as any weighted SCT rating <13 (lowest tertile of initial SCT scores in all NAS participants). Tooth-level Cox proportional regression, accounting for clustering within individuals, estimated the hazard of poor cognition, adjusted for education, epilepsy medication use, and time-varying values of tooth status (present, absent, fixed bridge/implant, removable replacement), age, cigarette smoking, and coronary heart disease.
The mean age at initial cognitive testing was 68±7 years. Forty-five percent of men had at least one low SCT score. Twenty-nine percent of participants lost no teeth during follow-up, 34% lost teeth that were not replaced, 13% had missing teeth subsequently replaced with fixed prostheses, and 25% had missing teeth replaced with removable prostheses. New fixed prostheses were associated with a lower hazard (HR=0.72, 95%CI=0.52-0.99) of poor cognition while new removable prostheses were associated with a higher hazard (HR=1.26, 95% CI=1.01-1.56). Loss of a tooth with no replacement was not associated with a significantly higher hazard (HR=1.05 95% CI=0.91-1.21) of poor cognition. Masticatory ability declined 6% in men with new fixed prostheses compared to 9%, 10%, and 13% in men with no tooth loss, new removable prostheses, and tooth loss but no replacement, respectively.
The study found that the replacement of missing teeth with fixed prostheses may protect against cognitive decline, and conservation of masticatory ability may play a role in the protective association.
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This research was presented as part of the Interactive Talk presentation, “Fixed Prosthetic Replacements May Lower Cognitive Impairment Risk,” which took place on Thursday, March 16th, 2023, at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-07:00) during the “Oral and General Health” session from 8 a.m.—9:30 a.m.
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International Association for Dental Research
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Study examines whether replacements for missing teeth lower the risk of poor cognition (2023, March 17)
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