Aim: The fact that accumulated reductions in the oral function with aging (i.e. oral frailty) lead to physical frailty has recently received considerable attention, and countermeasures are being promoted, mainly in the field of dentistry. We assessed the relationship between oral frailty and subjective food satisfaction under the hypothesis that oral frailty is also related to psychological problems.
Methods: Participants were attendees of the fourth wave of the Kashiwa cohort study in 2016. We excluded individuals with cognitive impairment and those who had missing values in the main variables. Regarding food satisfaction, "tastiness," "enjoyment," and "amount of food" were evaluated with self-administered questionnaires. Oral conditions were evaluated based on the number of remaining teeth and oral frailty.
Results: Of the 940 participants (mean age 76.3±5.1 years; 53% men), 71% responded that their food was "tasty," 96% said it was "enjoyable," 23% said that the amount of food was "large," and 63% said that the amount was "normal." While the number of teeth (20.8±8.5) was not significantly associated with food satisfaction, compared to those without oral frailty, those who had oral frailty were less likely to feel satisfaction with their meals ( "tasty," adjusted odds ratio [95% confidence interval] = 0.49 [0.29-0.83]; "large," 0.36 [0.15-0.84]; "normal," 0.44 [0.22-0.85]).
Conclusions: Our results indicated negative associations between oral frailty and food satisfaction. In addition, the absence of a significant association with the number of teeth suggests that it is necessary to maintain not only the number of teeth but also the comprehensive oral function to support older people's enriched diets.
Keywords: Eating; Elderly; Frailty; Oral frailty; Quality of Life.