Telemonitoring of the oral health condition of people with Parkinson's disease during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction The elderly are among those most affected by Covid-19, and among them are people with Parkinson's disease. Social distancing, due to the coronavirus, has led to new strategies and tools for health monitoring. Objective To describe the oral health conditions, using telemonitoring, of people with Parkinson's disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Material and method This is an analytical, quantitative, cross-sectional study. The tool used was the video call. The telephone contacts (n=154) were obtained from lists of patients in the Pro-Parkinson Extension Program at the Federal University of Pernambuco. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather sociodemographic data and daily oral hygiene practices for teeth and dentures, and whether or not the participant needed dental treatment, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Result The final sample consisted of 64 Parkinsonian patients. Regarding oral health care, the frequency of hygiene in this period was three times a day among 48.44% of participants, with toothbrush and toothpaste being the items most used for this task. More than half of the sample used dental prostheses. The most common oral health problems during this isolation period were pain, mouth sores and the need for tooth extraction. Conclusion Telemonitoring was essential because it was noted that these patients were deficient in their knowledge of basic hygiene practices and in information on oral health, as well as in the care of dental prostheses.

Profile of the impact on the oral health of persons with Parkinson’s disease during the COVID-19 isolation

“…One of the possible factors that interfered with and contributed to the result found may be explained by this group of people having participated in a multi-professional follow-up, even during the pandemic period in the remote format, which suggests that the telemonitoring satisfied the need for face-to-face follow-up and guidance regarding the relevance of treatment, enabling quality maintenance of oral health 14 .…”

“…Individuals who maintained the habit of leaving their homes during this period made use of approximately three preventive measures, the use of masks being the most common among them 24 . Such precautions are explained by the notable concern among family members with the sensitivity to contagion of the person who lives with PD 14 .…”

“…The present analytical, quantitative, cross-sectional study used the database from a study entitled: Telemonitoring of the oral health conditions in people with Parkinson's Disease during times of Covid-19 14 . That study was carried out from August to December of 2020, with people having PD who were registered in the Pro-Parkinson Extension Program at the Federal University of Pernambuco, and were treated at the Hospital das Clínicas (HC/UFPE) and the Parkinson's Association of Pernambuco (ASP/PE).…”