[Dental care in Hessian nursing homes for the aged. II: Oral hygiene awareness of inmates].

325 inhabitants of several Hessian rest and nursing homes--of an average age of 81 years--have been viewed about their laymen's knowledge of dentistry, their daily oral hygiene, and their opinion about dental treatment. The majority of those senior probands did not realize any connection between insufficient oral hygiene and the origin of both caries and periodontal disease. They considered oral hygiene to be a matter of bodycare, not of medical prevention.