Brushing Up on Mouthcare: Facilitating uptake of a daily oral care program in Continuing Care

Oral health is an important but often overlooked part of overall health. Canada's population is aging and seniors are keeping their natural teeth longer than in the past. This is good news but it is also known that oral health tends to become worse as people grow older. It is particularly poor for people who live in long-term care facilities or for those who depend on others for their personal care. Personal care providers report that it can be challenging to provide daily oral care, especially for older adults with dementia, and mouth care often has low priority among the long list of personal care tasks. We have recently completed a research project where we partnered with three long-term care facilities and an adult day hospital in Nova Scotia to learn more about the challenges of providing daily mouth care. We worked directly with personal care providers, nurse managers and administrators to develop and introduce a user-friendly daily oral care program for dependent older adults entitled "Brushing up on Mouthcare". This program includes hands-on resources, educational videos and guidelines to plan, organize and support staff in providing daily oral care. Support through this current project will enable us to take these resources to other long-term care settings, to care-providers who work in home support and to personal care provider education and training programs in community and private colleges. To date, we have developed a large network of care providers, educators and health service managers who are interested in the "Brushing up on Mouthcare" resources and who have committed to supporting steps for expanding our audience both provincially and nationally.