Association between mastication-related factors and the prevalence of dementia in Korean elderly women visiting senior centres

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mastication ability of elderly women by assessing the number of their remaining teeth, subjective mastication comfort, subjective chewing ability of five food items, relative occlusion balance and mastication performance involving in chewing gum. Background: Korea has already entered an aged society, issues related to the elderly are also growing; for example, dementia is emerging as a social problem. In addition, oral health of the elderly is very important because it is directly related to nutrient intake. A total of 101 subjects aged ≥65 who attended senior citizen centres in Daegu city provided consent and were included in this study. Materials and methods: The Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE-DS) was used to evaluate cognitive function. To assess the degree of objective mastication, we measured colour changes using a chewing gum and posterior occlusion force using a T-scan Ⅲ^® system. Results: There was an association between mastication ability and cognitive function, indicated by the colour changes in the chewing gum (P <.05). The participants with greater relative posterior occlusion forces had higher MMSE-DS scores than those with stronger relative anterior occlusion forces. There was a positive correlation between cognitive function and posterior occlusion force. Conclusion: The elderly having more occlusion force of posterior teeth rather than anterior teeth were associated with better cognitive ability. Therefore, it may be important for the elderly to restore the masticatory function for the posterior part to prevent against deterioration of cognitive function.