ALTHOUGH it can be said that the major problems encountered in dentistry generally commensurate with the aging of the patient, there is widespread misconception as regards such an implication.

The importance of this fact has prompted me to emphasize here that there needs to be made available to the public a comprehensive body of knowledge on the critical issue of growing older.
Interdisciplinary  research on the human ageing process (gerontology) has demonstrated that it is the effects of disease and not ageing in itself that is most significant in the way we perceive ourselves and others as either ‘youthful’ or ‘elderly’ in the latter years of life. We should therefore not be afraid of age, but we should be aware of health hazards.
We often become demure about our age as we grow older. We are so influenced by today’s youth culture, that youthfulness remains ideal for us, even when we have reached a considerable age. It is not surprising that the chronological ageing process is a traumatic experience for many.
One of the first questions patients have to answer during a visit to the dentist is how old they are! We love to classify people by age. There is a risk, however, of the date of birth becoming more significant than the individual.
Birthdates have become a simple and practical means of identification in modern society. However, in biological age research, this combination of digits is more often a nonsensical parameter, as it gives no indication whatsoever of how we function.
The elderly does not loose their teeth because they’ve grown old; they lose them because of diseases, the oral diseases frequently mirroring the general ones. Remember, the risk of disease increases with age.
Dental disease and alterations in saliva and mucous membranes may be early symptoms of a decrease in general health status of elderly people. These may indicate a weakening of tissues’ biological defense thresholds for different stresses. Few tissues in the human body must withstand what the oral tissues have to, not only in terms of possible dryness, but also mechanically, thermally, microbially, chemically and galvanically (electrically).
Oral tissues occasionally show relatively specific signs of systemic illness and negative social habits, but, most frequently, less characteristic reaction patterns are seen that cannot immediately be diagnosed. These are, however, usually specific to the individual, and thus form a kind of biological ‘fingerprint’, which changes with variations in health.
The vital point to note here is that we are all biologically unique individuals from birth, and become, functionally, increasingly diverse until we are very old, and must, sooner or later, ‘pay’ for the way we have used our biological resources.
The way we pay has to do with our genetic makeup, and the combined influence of the accumulated consequences of many years of physiological age changes, bouts of illness, use and abuse of medications, risky lifestyles and wanton neglect in the care of our bodies. F
From a psychological point of view, we actually become caricatures of ourselves in later years, and, invariably, we must take the blame.