Abstract

ALENCAR, Catarina Ribeiro Barros de; ANDRADE, Francisco Juliherme Pires de  and  CATAO, Maria Helena Chaves de Vasconcelos. Oral surgery in elderly patients: clinical/surgical considerations and risk assessment. RSBO (Online) [online]. 2011, vol.8, n.2, pp. 200-210. ISSN 1984-5685.

INTRODUCTION: The need for oral surgery has been considerably increasing in elderly population in order to allow the balance of their masticatory, aesthetic, and phonetic functions through adapting the oral tissues for the appropriate placement of the prosthetic devices, thereby impacting positively on the subject's health. OBJECTIVE: This article aimed to review the literature on both clinical and surgical considerations required to the satisfactory treatment of elderly patients in clinical routine practice, focusing particularly on cases whose treatment choice is a surgical procedure. LITERATURE REVIEW: The most commonly performed surgeries in elderly patients, nowadays, are tooth extractions, pre-prosthetic surgeries and osseointegrated implants. Therefore, the physiological features inherent to such cases should be considered, especially those that involve the monitoring of glycemic and blood pressure levels, osteoporosis, medication use, and many other conditions demanding special attention for elderly patient treatment at dental office. CONCLUSION: Due to the fragility intrinsic to elderly individuals, the surgery at this stage of life requires caution in relation to a comprehensive clinical examination and also to a careful evaluation of the surgical risks in order to analyze the correct indication of the surgery and thereby to ensure patient's well-being.

Keywords : Dentistry; oral surgery; elderly person.