Department of Dentistry, Eastman Institute of Oral Health, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA.
Division of Geriatrics and Aging, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA.
Spec Care Dentist. 2023 Nov-Dec;43(6):765-771. doi: 10.1111/scd.12871. Epub 2023 May 5.
Postdoctoral dental education in caring for older adults lacks didactic and clinical training in mentation topics, one of the core elements of the Age-Friendly Health Systems (AFHS) framework. Our primary goal was to launch a pilot project in clinical geriatrics focusing on older adults' mentation concerns, with a secondary goal to improve dental residents' confidence and competence in dental care and oral health.
Age-friendly care elements are not routinely incorporated into the dental education of residents caring for older adults with cognitive impairment or dementia. Therefore, we implemented a pilot educational project, providing the missing educational opportunity for residents in geriatric training covering cognitive impairment and focusing on Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
We designed educational sessions through a needs assessment, focus group discussions, and expert validation. We developed three e-Learning modules covering mentation concerns and dementia screening. We tested the modules in a pilot study of 15 dental postdoctoral residents as an essential part of their clinical practice.
The dementia dental learning module increased the residents' satisfaction with didactic preparedness (4.45 0.97) and knowledge acquisition (4.36 0.84). Residents strongly believed that learning about the AFHS-mentation topic would improve patient care.
Our pilot study is a pioneer project in support of a new AFHS-themed dental curriculum for clinical education. Further expansion of the age-friendly principles to include mobility, medications, and what matters to older adults will establish a model framework of redesigned geriatric dental education for academic centers.
针对老年人的博士后牙科教育在思维主题的教学和临床培训方面存在不足，而思维主题是老年友善健康系统（Age-Friendly Health Systems，AFHS）框架的核心要素之一。我们的主要目标是启动一个专注于老年人思维问题的临床老年病学试点项目，次要目标是提高牙科住院医师在牙科护理和口腔健康方面的信心和能力。
在为认知障碍或痴呆的老年患者提供护理的牙科住院医师的教育中，常规情况下并未纳入老年友善护理要素。因此，我们实施了一个试点教育项目，为接受老年病学培训的住院医师提供了涵盖认知障碍的缺失教育机会，重点关注阿尔茨海默病和相关痴呆症。
我们通过需求评估、焦点小组讨论和专家验证来设计教育课程。我们开发了涵盖思维问题和痴呆症筛查的三个电子学习模块。我们在 15 名牙科博士后住院医师的试点研究中对这些模块进行了测试，作为他们临床实践的重要组成部分。
痴呆症牙科学习模块提高了住院医师对教学准备（4.45±0.97）和知识获取（4.36±0.84）的满意度。住院医师强烈认为，了解 AFHS-思维主题将改善患者护理。
我们的试点研究是支持临床教育中新型 AFHS 主题牙科课程的先驱项目。进一步扩展友善年龄原则，纳入移动性、药物和老年人关心的问题，将为学术中心重新设计老年牙科教育建立一个模型框架。
