Do you have to brush your teeth when your teeth are gone?

In daily life, many elderly people will avoid the steps of brushing their teeth in the morning and evening due to severe or completely falling off due to their teeth. In fact, even if the elderly do not have teeth, they should brush their teeth carefully and keep oral hygiene.

Brushing its teeth is not just to clean the teeth, it has an important role in the entire mouth and even the health of the whole body.

■ Guarantee fresh tone

After the lack of teeth of the elderly, the chewing ability decreases sharply, and the secretion function of various glands such as salivary glands has also declined. Oral hygiene is often poor, and it is prone to bad breath. Brushing your teeth will help eliminate the taste of the oral cavity and keep your tone fresh. To a certain extent, it will help improve the quality of life of the elderly.

■ Keep oral health

As the elderly continue to increase age, the oral mucosa gradually becomes thinner and loses elasticity. It cannot form a powerful oral defense line. The incidence of oral ulcers and inflammation will greatly increase.

According to research, hundreds of millions of bacteria hidden in the normal population cavity can reduce the bacteria by 15%-25%and brush the teeth once, which can reduce the bacteria by about 70%.

Therefore, serious brushing can effectively reduce the number of bacteria and microorganisms in the elderly's population, thereby greatly reducing the occurrence of oral ulcers and other inflammation.

■ Enhanced swallowing reflection and cough reflection function

With the aging of the body, the elderly have decreased in swallowing and reflection and cough reflex functions. The foreign objects in the mouth are easily inhaled into the respiratory tract, which will induce inhaled pneumonia.

Brushing your teeth is not only hand exercise, but also contains the movement of the lips and cheeks and the tongue. This can exercise the swallow reflection and cough reflection function of the elderly.

■ Good for whole body health

Facts show that some microorganisms in the mouth have close connections with many common diseases, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and some gastrointestinal diseases. Brushing teeth can effectively reduce pathogenic microorganisms, prevent "disease from the mouth", thereby reducing the occurrence of related diseases and maintaining physical health.

The individual situation of the elderly with lack of teeth is different, and the method of brushing the teeth should be selected according to the actual situation.

■ Toothless and young people with self -care

These elderly people can choose a soft toothbrush to brush the hair, gently and slowly massage the alveolar, cheeks, palate and other oral mucosa, which lasts for one to two minutes. Subsequently, the tongue coating should be focused. Tongue coating often stores a large amount of pathogenic bacteria and microorganisms, which needs to be taken seriously.

■ Unreasonable toothless and young teeth old people

If these elderly people also have normal throughput, the family can try to brush their teeth; if the elderly no longer have this ability, the family can use a wet gauze wrapped on the fingers or a cotton swab with a physiological salt water to clean the mouth.

(Source: Wenhui Author: Mi Junguo, deputy chief physician of Tongji Hospital Stomatology Department)

【Edit: Fu Sakura】

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