Prosthetic Needs and Their Association with Nutritional Status Among Institutionalized Elderly: A Cross-Sectional Study from Eastern India

lesions such as oral cancer.In addition to negatively impacting food intake, nutritional status, and phonetics, poor oral health and tooth loss also jeopardize overall health.3,4 Several factors are known to be associated with the oral health of the elderly, such as socioeconomic and nutritional status, literacy level, marital status, smoking or chewing tobacco, and alcohol consumption.4 Malnutrition in the elderly also has an enormous impact on the general health and quality of life.Nutrition and oral health are IntroductIonThe aging process is a biological inevitability.In the present-day scenario, as life expectancy has increased with progress in the medical field, this huge population has to face several difficulties in terms of general and oral health.This demographic transition has profound implications for healthcare systems, especially in developing countries like India, where the elderly population is growing at an unprecedented rate.According to the "Elderly in India 2021" report by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, the proportion of the elderly in India is rising steadily, with states such as West Bengal showing one of the highest growth rates among major Indian states.This underscores the pressing need to address geriatric health challenges, particularly in resource-constrained settings.1 As West Bengal is the most densely populated state, and given that the present study focuses on institutionalized patients, there is always a possibility of encountering a diverse population under one roof, which strengthens the representativeness of the findings.Out of the multifactorial entities concerning quality of life, oral health is one of the major issues, as it is an integral part of healthy living.Edentulism, which refers to the complete loss of all permanent teeth, 2 represents the terminal stage of a complex and multifactorial disease progression that is influenced by a variety of biological, behavioral, and systemic factors.This condition typically arises as a cumulative consequence of untreated dental caries, advanced periodontal disease, irreversible pulpal pathology, traumatic dental injuries, and, in some cases, malignant oral