Jay S. Luxenberg, MD

I don't usually write book reviews for the Wave, but this book sent to me by the author, a friend, surprised me so much by how it changed my thinking about an under-addressed aspect of long-term care that I want to share it with our readers. It is called "Poor oral health, a potential new geriatric giant" and it is subtitled "Significant oral health (care) issues in frail older people." It was a result of the PhD thesis work of its author, Gert-Jan van der Putten, an Elderly Care Physician (what we would call a geriatrician) and researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Gert-Jan's book reports many studies that he has done in care homes and nursing homes in the Netherlands, looking at the provision of oral health care and the correlates of poor oral health. In particular, he looks at screening tools for xerostomia and hyposalivation. He reports on how frequently nursing home residents are on medications that diminish salivation. He found lower rates of resting, chewing stimulated and acid stimulated saliva secretion in women in nursing homes compared to men, and found that polypharmacy correlated with a very acidic saliva production.