Search Text:  

May 04, 2009

The Inconvenient Tooth: A new challenge for baby-boomers

This Café Scientifique was intended to raise awareness about oral health issues for older adults and to share current research in this area in an informal and relaxed setting. In addition to the hosts, Northwoodcare Inc and researchers from Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Dentistry, participants (20 in total) included professionals from various stakeholder organizations (e.g., government, community college, health organizations), as well as members of the general public.

The evening began with participants arriving and mingling amongst themselves. ‘Oral Health Multiple Choice Trivia’ questions provided an ice-breaker for participants who were asked to seek out fellow participants with the same question to discuss possible answers.

Ann McInnis, VP Community & Continuing Care at Northwood Inc., welcomed everyone and provided an overview of Northwood’s commitment to the issue of seniors’ oral health and collaborative research projects involving the Dalhousie Faculty of Dentistry. She also outlined the purpose of the CIHR Café Scientifique, and introduced the moderator Meredith Campbell of NSHRF.

Ms. Campbell then introduced the panel, Dr. McNally, Dr. Matthews, and Dr. Clovis and gave a brief overview of their backgrounds and research interests.

Dr. McNally started the session by going over the responses to each of the ten trivia questions, asking the audience what they believed the answers to be. She provided a brief history of the collaboration between Northwood and the Dalhousie Faculty of Dentistry, including how the partnership began, the involvement of the Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre, and the results/recommendations from earlier research. Dr. McNally then outlined some of the current research being done with Northwood including a project she is leading examining the ethical dimensions of providing oral care, as well as a project that will be conducted by Dr. Michael Leiter (Acadia) examining the quality of worklife for care providers.

Dr. Matthews provided an overview of “The Oral Health of our Aging Population” research project, which is currently examining the oral health care status of Nova Scotia adults. This study will involve conducting oral health examinations and questionnaires with 1200 Nova Scotians ages 45 and older. The pre-senior “baby-boomer” age group is included in this study in order to understand the needs of future seniors.  The survey will involve 26 long-term care (LTC) facilities from across the province, as well as people living independently in the community.

Dr. Clovis spoke about the importance of community participation in research and the value of collaborations and partnerships. She explained that currently, there is a gap between knowing and doing, and the end users of research findings don’t often have access to or understanding of research results. Knowledge translation (KT) is the most urgent need for researchers and policy makers, and rather than restrict KT activities to publications in academic journals and presentations at academic conferences, KT activities should be expanded to include forums, websites, television advertisement, PSA’s, political lobbying, Café’s, etc (most of which are activities she and her colleagues have undertaken).

A question and answer period followed the panel discussion where a broad variety of topics were discussed including organizational barriers to oral health in LTC and the need for government support of oral health services.

Participant evaluations of the Café indicate that participants were pleased with the overall event (scores were high in all four categories - format of presentations, topic, speakers, and venue). Comments indicated that the informal nature of the event, group discussion, and ability to meet and network with others were key features that participants particularly enjoyed.