Book review: Geriatric dentistry

  • P. K. Friedman
Wiley Blackwell price £50.99; pp 336 ISBN 9781118300169 | ISBN: 978-1-1183-0016-9

The intended readership for Geriatric dentistry: caring for our aging population is broad – dental students, dentists, hygiene students, hygienists, mid-level providers, non-dental health providers and the lay public. The editor sees a gap in the market for a 'how-to' guide to caring for older dental patients in the widest sense and believes that this book addresses that omission.

Written by multiple authors from the USA and Canada, the book is divided into six sections. The first section – 'The underlying principles of aging' – discusses population changes and the trends in oral health in older adults from a North American perspective. This section also describes the significance of increasing impairment of the older patient and its relevance to oral health. It does not, despite its title, discuss ageing per se. The section concludes with a chapter on palliative care dentistry, which could have been better placed in the care delivery section.

The middle four sections range through through 'Clinical practice', 'Decision making and treatment planning', 'Common geriatric oral conditions and their clinical implications' and 'Care delivery', the latter containing important chapters on oral health promotion in long-term care and the inclusion of dental professionals in the wider interdisciplinary team.

These four sections start with an assessment tool for measuring care providers' attitudes to ageing, and move on to patient assessment, treatment planning, consent and evidence-based decision-making. Oral conditions covered from the geriatric perspective include root caries, periodontal disease, endodontics, oral mucosal lesions and dental prosthetics. The significance of xerostomia and the medical complexities of ageing are described in separate chapters.

Most chapters include thought provoking case studies and all conclude with questions for discussion and revision. The clinical sections have colour illustrations but some of the reproduced radiographs lack definition. All the chapters are extensively referenced and the book has an associated website, from which the figures and discussion questions and answers can be downloaded.

The final section is entitled 'Future vision', and is again written from a trans-Atlantic perspective.

In a multi-author textbook, some repetition is inevitable but this does not detract from this useful addition to the limited numbers of textbooks available on gerodontics. Because of the breadth of the editor's target readership, the book contains sufficient material for several all-staff training sessions to help improve care and understanding of our ageing patients, in addition to much relevant clinical material. The book is highly recommended for students, DCPs and GDPs.