Oral Health as a Predictor of Memory Accuracy in Healthy Older Adults
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Shields, Jessica
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In the past, most Alzheimer's disease research has focused on the amyloid hypothesis, but recent studies have found that chronic inflammation caused by periodontal disease and negative changes in the gut microbiome could potentially contribute to the onset of the disease. However, previous studies investigating the relationship between oral health and cognition have all used varying methods to measure oral health, which has led to conflicting findings in the literature. In this study, we developed a comprehensive oral health survey and validated the scales using exploratory factor analysis. We also tested the association between oral health and cognition by analyzing the performance of 190 healthy older adults on the 15 Words Test, which is an episodic memory task. Our results suggest that there is no relationship between oral health and deficits in episodic memory. This work contributes to an existing debate in this field and could impact the direction of future research on the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease.
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Undergraduate Research Option Thesis