The increase numbers of elderly persons in our country does not translate into increase need for dental work. These patients have a stable slowly progressive periodontist that will put a burden on the auxillary dental paraprofessional, namely the hygienst. The old notion that the olderly have a higher level of susceptibility to disease is challenage in this paper. The notion that the host defense mechanism associated with the aging process is accountable for the obvserved enhanced prevalence and severity of periodontitis in the elderly is challanged.
The olderly have special problems: accumulated lifetime periodontitis; decreased manual dexterity. The research in terms of the microbiology in the healthy versus periodontically challanged along with monocytes and neutrophil changes need to be investigated. So the research out there in 1984 shows anecdotal information.
What the paper can give us is Page'82 the olderlly have a slowly progessive periodontitis starting around age 30 which comes in cycles and increases with age although no defects in leukocyte function or ther host defese mechanisms are the typical case. What is shown is many changes in the periodontium like rough jagged disorganized sharpey's fibers decrease in mitiosis of gingival tissues and collagen production. And finally alterations in T-cells showing a decline in the aging but B-cells remaining the same.
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