Hipossalivação em idosos e sua relação com a saúde bucal, mastigação e deglutição

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To verify the symptoms of hyposalivation in the elderly and to analyze its relationship with oral health, chewing and swallowing. METHODOLOGY: Sectional study, consisting of 196 elderly (≥60 years). For collection, the xerostomia questionnaire was used as a screening instrument for hyposalivation, the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI), the Tracking of masticatory changes in the elderly (RAMI) and the Tracking of oropharyngeal dysphagia in the elderly (RaDi). Descriptive and analytical analyzes were performed using the Linear Tendency and Spearman correlation tests. RESULTS: The average age was 68.95 (± 5.95), with 29 (14.8%) being male and 167 (85.2%) being female. 121 (61.7%) feel their mouth dry at night or as soon as they wake up, 77 (39.3%) often wake up at night with thirst, 58 (29.6%) feel dry mouth during the day and 57 ( 29.1%) during meals, 55 (28.1%) feel little saliva in the mouth most of the time, 33 (16.8%) have difficulty swallowing food, 18 (9.2% ) chew gum or candy to relieve the feeling of dry mouth and 17 (8.7%) have a burning sensation on their tongue. There was an association (≤0.001) between "feeling dry mouth during meals" and having difficulty grinding food, effort when chewing, and feeling pain/discomfort during chewing, in addition to a moderate correlation between the four questionnaires (p <0.001). CONCLUSION: A relationship was identified between the symptoms of hyposalivation, oral health, chewing and swallowing in the elderly population, indicating that the lower the salivary production, the greater the functional impairments.