Interprofessional Oral Health Resources for Healthy Aging Month!

Oral Health Nursing Education and Practice (OHNEP)'s picture
Submitted by Oral Health Nur... on Sep 19, 2023 - 11:45am CDT

Resource Type: 
Tool

September is Healthy Aging Month, giving health professionals the opportunity to recognize the importance of oral health in promoting overall positive health outcomes as we age. Year-round, OHNEP enhances the nursing profession’s interprofessional role in oral health and its links to overall health in both academic and clinical settings. Adopting healthy habits and lifestyle changes - regular exercise, a nutritious diet, improved sleep patterns - are ways we can overcome health physical and mental health challenges that occur with age.

OHNEP has developed several resources to promote the importance of oral health care for older adults that educators and clinicians can use to improve the quality of oral health care for their patients.

Our Interprofessional Oral Health Faculty Tool Kits are innovative curricular products intended to facilitate the integration of oral-systemic health content and clinical competencies into undergraduate nursing, nurse practitioner and midwifery curricula: https://shorturl.at/lIJQY

We have created Oral Health Patient Facts that are designed to be user-friendly, easy to understand, and aim to improve patients' oral health literacy by providing information about how oral health and overall health are connected for many health conditions and across the lifespan: https://shorturl.at/xKPQ9

We have developed several modules with the National League for Nursing (NLN) for their Advancing Care Excellence (ACE) Series. We encourage faculty and educators to incorporate these strategies into curricula and build awareness of the importance of oral health in improving overall health:

Importance of Oral-Systemic Health in Older Adults: https://shorturl.at/hwDT7
Oral Health and Alzheimer's Disease: https://shorturl.at/jsB14

Author(s): 
Oral Health Nursing Education and Practice (OHNEP)
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