In rapidly aging societies, it is commonly found that the limited number of remaining teeth in elders results in chewing difficulties that cause health problems and malnutrition. Surprisingly, even the latest high-tech oral medical care achieves health maintenance results that are inferior to those regularly achieved by healthy natural teeth. Oral health issues are particularly serious in rural areas. The literature supports a close association between oral hygiene and general health. Because oral microorganisms are known to cause infections and inflammation reactions, people with poor oral hygiene often have high incidences of periodontal disease and tooth loss and an even higher prevalence of cardiometabolic-related chronic diseases, poorer life quality, and higher mortality than their peers with better oral hygiene (Ma et al., 2017; Tsai et al., 2015; World Health Organization, 2018). Although promoting oral hygiene may be done on a minimal budget and with high efficacy, many people retain improper oral-hygiene concepts and behaviors. For instance, many do not recognize the relationship between real teeth and general health, brush their teeth for inadequate durations, and/or apply improper methods. Furthermore, many do not make use of the regular dental cleaning resources available through the National Health Insurance program, leading to poor oral hygiene care outcomes such as tooth decay in school-age children, periodontal disease and tooth loss in adulthood, and the current average of fewer than 20 real teeth in adults 65~80 years of age. All of these poor oral-hygiene realities lead to Taiwan falling far short of WHO oral-health-related goals. Based on the perspective of prevention and health promotion, this column presents the important role of the nursing profession in improving the quality of oral hygiene care through the three critical phases of life: school age, active adulthood, and elderly adulthood. We look to advance national oral hygiene in Taiwan to a standard exceeding that of the World Health Organization in order to demonstrate the practical benefit of Taiwan's two-decade-long National Health Insurance system.
Title: 低成本高效益卻被忽視的口腔衛生.
在面臨高齡社會的同時，我們經常發現長者僅存的真牙數目非常少，導致咀嚼困難與營養不良引發的連鎖健康問題，才驚覺即使運用高科技的口腔醫療，仍遠不及恆牙存在的價值，此現象在偏鄉地區尤其嚴重。許多文獻顯示口腔衛生與全身健康息息相關，由於口腔中的微生物會引起感染與發炎反應，因此口腔衛生不佳者，容易出現牙周病與牙齒脫落，也有較高的心血管代謝等慢性疾病、生活品質較差、與較高的死亡率等問題（Ma et al., 2017; Tsai et al., 2015; World Health Organization, 2018）。促進口腔衛生的方法並不困難，甚至可謂低成本高效益的投資；但是許多人卻存在錯誤的口腔衛生觀念與行為（Ma et al., 2017），包括不了解牙齒與全身健康的關係，不正確的潔牙時間與方法，以及未能善用健保提供的定期洗牙資源，導致學齡階段的蛀牙、成人牙周病與牙齒掉落的問題，以及不到80歲真牙低於20顆的世界衛生組織的期許。本專欄就是從預防與健康促進的角度，在人生不同的三個階段，護理專業可以努力著墨提升國人在學期間、畢業後進入職場、以及高齡需要長期照護階段的口腔照護品質，希望國人的口腔健康優於世界衛生組織的標準，如此才不愧於我們擁有全民健保20餘年的典範。.