Best Dental care practical tips for Parkinson’s Disease patients

As an Amazon Associate my posts contain affiliate links that include Amazon and Awin . If you make a purchase through my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps to support my site so I can continue to offer great content to you

Dental health care is a challenge for those with Parkinson’s Disease. Both maintaining a daily mouth care routine and attending dentist appointments can become both complicated and challenging.

Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive neurological disorder. Many individuals with Parkinson’s Disease can also go on to develop dementia. Ongoing progression can worsen to the extent that simple everyday activities and routines become more challenging and forgotten. Dental care can fall to the wayside amidst other responsibilities as care can fall to the carers to support.

Being a carer is extremely challenging and as responsibilities mount daily, dental care can get overlooked. Managing medication, meals, self care, bills and doctors appointments amongst many other daily demands means that many other tasks can get overlooked.

Challenges in Dental Care

The physical challenges for someone with Parkinson’s Disease make brushing their teeth difficult to maintain.

• Tremors make it difficult to hold and navigate a toothbrush. Holding a toothbrush in the mouth and managing a brushing movement is extremely hard to do.
• Cognitive changes can impact on the ability to manage and remember the steps to follow through the activity.
• The ability to stand for a period of time due to posture, freezing, mobility issues can make the whole activity feel an impossible and tiring task.
• Swallowing is a big issue with someone who has Parkinson’s and therefore ability to swallow effectively increases risk of choking.
• Increase in dry mouth can increase the risk of developing dental cavities and can make chewing difficult and the use of dentures more uncomfortable.
• Apathy around mouth care
• Misjudging distance to put toothpaste onto a toothbrush and put in mouth without assistance.
• Forget to brush teeth without prompts.
• Change in behaviour and resistance.

From experience, support to maintain a level of self care including dental care is started at an early stage of illness. As the illness progresses ability to maintain a level of dental care becomes more challenging. Strategies have to be adapted or changed to be able to deal with the challenges as they arise.

Dry mouth

Dry mouth is a common symptom with Parkinson’s disease. Saliva is important to help keep your mouth healthy. Not having enough saliva can lead to tooth decay and gum disease as saliva is antibacterial and helps to keep your mouth clean.

Dry mouth increases infection in your mouth and can cause bad breath and chapped lips. Some Parkinson’s medication can cause dry mouth; if it becomes problematic it is worth talking to your consultant about your medication.

There are saliva substitutes that can be prescribed and help maintain moisture in your mouth. You can talk to your GP or dentist who can prescribe these for you.

Tips for Dry Mouth

• Use a fluoride mouthwash
• Frequent sips of water can help keep your mouth moist
• Sugar free sweets or chewing gum can help to increase saliva
• Cutting down on caffeine can help as caffeine can increase dryness in your mouth
• Using lip salve regularly to protect dry lips from chapping
• If using dentures make sure they are removed at night. Lack of saliva can cause dentures to be harder to use.

Tips for cleaning teeth

It is important to try and maintain a regular routine morning and night. If a carer is needed to support a mouth care routine, try and incorporate this into morning and bedtime routine using a fluoride toothpaste.

Standing behind the person to support is easier or to the side. It can help to clean one side of the mouth and then the other.

Having regular check ups with a dentist is vital to monitoring dental care and any infections. Discuss and share with your dentist your Parkinson’s diagnosis as many dentists can still treat someone with Parkinson’s through all stages.

Depending on your dentist and ability to manage appointments, for example tremors and dyskinesia, it may be difficult to get in and out of the chair and to stay still. If this is the case, dentists can refer on to a special care Dentist Specialist who work in both hospitals and community.

Tips for managing dentures

Wearing dentures can become difficult for someone with Parkinson’s disease. Below are some issues that may arise

• Dry mouth
• Saliva drooling from the mouth
• Loss of muscle tone
• Problems controlling facial muscles.

Dentures that may have fitted comfortably before can become uncomfortable and difficult to wear. It maybe that a new set is needed. Infections can occur if not fitted correctly.

It is best to remove the dentures first before brushing any natural teeth. Plaque can build up on dentures as it does on natural teeth. Dentures should be rinsed under clean water after each meal and cleaned at least twice a day. It is important to brush your gums and tongue using fluoride toothpaste. It is also important to soak dentures in denture soaking solution overnight.

General tips for overall mouth care

• Brushing your teeth with a fluoride toothpaste twice a day for at least 2 minutes is a good routine to follow. You can get further advice from your dentist on best toothpaste but generally any fluoride based toothpaste is suitable and available over the counter at your supermarket.
• Following up your brushing with rinsing with a good mouthwash is a good habit to get into. Our favourite and tried and tested mouthwash is Listerine.
• Brushing after meals is good practice.

If you have gum disease, a sign of this is bleeding when you brush your teeth, particularly if struggling to maintain a dental routine, using a toothpaste such as Corsodyl may be useful along with a Corsodyl mouthwash. However it is recommended that you speak to your dentist for advice regarding gum disease treatment.

Best tips on Flossing

Dentists generally advise on regular flossing of your teeth to keep your mouth healthy. Flossing is done by using interdental brushes that are much smaller than a toothbrush and you use them to clean between your teeth. They are very effective at controlling tooth decay. You can buy them in packs in any chemist or supermarket. You should aim to floss at least once to twice daily.

Having Parkinson’s Disease may mean that you might struggle to floss. If you can hold your mouth open, it may mean that a carer can do this for you. If not then try and rinse your mouth out with mouthwash.

Tips for Carers to help maintain good mouth care

Carers (speaking from experience) generally have to start taking a more ‘hands on’ approach. Here are some tips that may help:

• Earlier on in the Parkinson’s journey it may be that providing instruction (like teaching a child) may be enough by standing at their side and prompting.
• Good advice that I received and has worked is using an electric toothbrush with soft bristles. They are ideal for someone with limited hand mobility and co-ordination as they only need ‘guiding’ around the mouth. I have provided the link to the one that I have found best as it has a sensitive setting, 8 different heads and a 2 minute timer and also very cost effective.
• Making dental appointments, supporting them to attend and discuss their illness with the dentist. In other words act as an advocate for them.
• Monitor any eating issues as they may have difficulty swallowing, dentures not fitting anymore or have a mouth infection. If concerned, speak to the dentist.
• If their mood or behaviour is difficult, postpone brushing teeth until more settled.
• Be patient. Its hard sometimes but it can make the whole issue worse if not.
• Avoid using too much toothpaste due to possibility of choking. Instead use only a small amount and try and get them to lean over the sink so they can spit out easily.
• Have a flannel handy for quick clean up of excess fluids.

I do hope you have found my tips useful and would love to hear your experiences and suggestions that you have found to work. If you are enjoying reading my blog post please subscribe so that you do not miss any of my other blog posts.