{"id":820,"date":"2022-08-24T11:31:55","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T02:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/caring-futures-institute\/?p=820"},"modified":"2022-09-01T10:55:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T01:25:13","slug":"making-oral-hygiene-a-priority-for-aged-and-vulnerable-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/caring-futures-institute\/2022\/08\/24\/making-oral-hygiene-a-priority-for-aged-and-vulnerable-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Making oral hygiene a priority for aged and vulnerable patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever thought about how important your mouth and teeth are to your health and everyday functioning? Consider that the mouth is the gateway to the rest of your body – not only for the good things like food and drink, but also for infection.<\/p>\n

The importance of good oral health for maintaining general health is the focus of a Flinders Caring Futures Institute study aimed at implementing and sustaining multi-disciplinary strategies to reduce missed oral healthcare in hospital.<\/p>\n

While toileting, showering and mobility are often front of mind when considering the fundamentals of care in the hospital environment, Co-Chief Investigator Dr Joanne Murray<\/a> says it is not uncommon for older people to miss out on brushing their teeth as they normally would at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaintaining good oral hygiene through regular oral care is a simple low-cost infection control mitigation strategy that improves patient safety and quality of life. But we know that good oral healthcare is hard to deliver in hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missing out on proper oral hygiene can also lead to problems with eating and swallowing, resulting in malnutrition, infection and increased length of stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving an unclean, painful mouth that is not functioning properly and may be infected can also impact older patients\u2019 feelings of self-worth and whether they feel valued in the hospital environment,\u201d Dr Murray says.<\/p>\n

In collaboration with Southern Adelaide Local Health Network (SALHN) and SA Dental and based at Noarlunga Hospital, The REDUCE (tRanslating knowlEDge for FUndamental CarE)<\/em> project was launched to address this problem and explore the need to embed basic oral hygiene measures for aged and vulnerable patients in the health system. The team started at Whittaker Geriatric Evaluation Management (GEM) Unit located within the hospital.<\/p>\n

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Registered Nurse Debbie Courage and SP Zita Splawinski explain the implementation strategies at the launch of Whittaker Smiles, watched on by CEO of SA Dental, Mark Chilvers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bringing together researchers in the Fundamentals of Care and Knowledge Translation teams from Flinders Caring Futures Institute, oral care experts from SA Dental Service including Co-Chief Investigator Dr Adrienne Lewis, and SALHN clinicians and managers, the project team investigated ways to ensure mouthcare and oral hygiene are properly considered when caring for every patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to raise awareness about best practice oral healthcare and improve availability of appropriate oral healthcare products, by engaging with frontline staff who are exposed to older patients on a day-to-day basis,\u201d Dr Murray says.<\/p>\n