The elderly is a special social group, for the characteristics of their physical and mental are organ and physiological function decline and the body resistance ability reduced, which lead to various acute and chronic diseases. For elderly patients, long sufferings from these diseases may cause psychological changes such as anxiety and depression, and the quality of elderly patients’ life will be seriously affected.

Oral diseases, such as dental caries and periodontal disease, are one of the common clinical diseases, of which incidence rate is higher in the elderly. According to the literature reports, the oral health status of the elderly is generally worrying. For example, the incidence of dental plaque is as high as 91%; the average number of permanent teeth missing in the 65-74 age group is 11.24, and the caries rate is 65.15% [2]. Oral examination is one of the key contents of oral health care, in this case, how to improve the diagnosis and treatment effect of oral diseases is a problem that clinical dentists should pay close attention to.

With the development of digital imaging technology in recent years, oral endoscopy has been applied in major hospitals and clinics in China. The study compared the clinical effects of traditional oral examination and oral endoscopy examination in elderly patients. The reports are as follow:

1. Materials and Methods 

1.1 Clinical data of 247 elderly patients from January to October, 2013 were selected. The inclusion criteria includes 60 years old, normal mental consciousness, normal communication and cooperation with the examiners. The exclusion criteria were mental disorders or the people who lacks of ability to cooperate with the examiners. The patients were split into two groups, there were 125 patients in the study group, including 76 males and 49 females, with an average age of (69.512.4) years; in addition, there were 122 patients in the control group, including 65 males and 57 females, with an average age of (71.311.7) years. In this case, there was no significant difference in gender and age between the two groups (P 0.05), so it is comparable.

1.2 The study group used oral endoscopy for oral examination and the control group was given regular oral examination.

1.3 Observed the indicators and recorded the clinical effect of the two patients’ groups: including the number of patients with clinical diagnosis of oral diseases, the number of patients required for immediate scaling, the number of patients satisfied after scaling. The oral disease diagnosis rate, immediate scaling rate and satisfaction rate of each group were calculated respectively. The average time required for diagnosis (min) and the average examination cost (yuan) were recorded.

1.4 SPSS l9.0 software was used for statistical analysis. The measurement data was expressed by mean standard deviation (xs), the measurement data was T-test, and the count data was 2-test; and the test level was 0.05. 

2 Result

2.1 The clinical effect of oral disease examination was compared between the two groups: The diagnosis rate of oral disease in the study group was 86.4%, while in the control group was 83.6%. That is to say, there is no significant difference between the two groups (P>0.05). The immediate scaling rate was 68.5% in the study group and 22.5% in the control group, that is to say, there is significant difference between the two groups (P<0.05). The cleaning satisfaction rate was 95.9% in the study group, and the control group was 69.6%, there is significant difference between the two groups(P<0.05).

2.2 Comparison of the average examination time and cost between the two groups: the average examination time of the study group was (10.74.6) min, and the control group was (14.65.2) min, that is to say, there is significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.05). The average examination cost of the study group was (152.425.2) yuan, and the control group was (198.537.7) yuan, that is to say, there is significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.05).

3. Oral disease has become one of the global health problems, which is the third major disease in the world following cardiovascular and tumor disease. With the decline of the elder body's functions, the incidence rate of oral diseases is much higher than that of other people. Some studies have reported that oral diseases can not only cause the elderly chewing food difficulties, pain and other symptoms, but also result the changes of the patient's appearance and digestion and absorption function according to the lack of teeth. At the same time, the long-term existence of oral lesions may lead to the dysfunction of human immune defense system and various immune disorders, such as arthropathy, connective tissue disease, cardiovascular disease and urinary system disease, which will seriously affect the quality of life of the elderly in their later years.

Oral examination is one of the key steps of oral health care for the elderly, that is to say, how to improve the effect of diagnosis and treatment of oral diseases in the elderly is a problem for clinical dentists. What’s more, traditional oral examination methods are often time-consuming, and can’t directly present the patients with oral diseases, in addition, just the statement of stomatologists isn't conducive to accept the doctor's advice for elderly patients. As a result, the effect of doctor-patient communication isn't well.

With the development of medical technology, digital oral cavity endoscope has been gradually applied in hospitals and clinics at all levels in China. The endoscope is a high-tech biomedical product integrating optical, electrical, mechanical and multimedia technology. Its principle is to put the micro camera into the patient's mouth, with the cooperation of its own lighting, the patient's teeth and soft tissue details are taken in, and the image of the affected area is clearly displayed on the display screen through photoelectric conversion and digital circuit processing. The patient's teeth, gums and mucosal tissue lesions will be objectively present. Moreover, oral cavity endoscope is easy to operate, which can be used to take pictures from multiple angles for many times. The study showed that there is no significant difference in the clinical diagnosis rate of oral diseases between the study group and the control group, but the immediate scaling rate and scaling satisfaction rate of the study group are significantly higher than those of the control group, which is indicating that oral cavity endoscope has little advantage over the traditional examination method in improving the clinical diagnosis rate of oral diseases. However, for it can objectively and intuitively present the image information of oral lesions to elderly patients, in this way, patients can better accept the doctor's treatment suggestions, which improves the effect of doctor-patient communication. In this case, the timely cleaning rate and cleaning satisfaction rate of patients are significantly improved, which has important social significance in current medical environment with doctor-patient relationship are increasingly intensified. At the same time, the study also showed that the average time and cost of examination in the study group were significantly lower than that of the control group, which showed that the oral endoscopy method had good effect and low cost, so as to produce good economic benefits.

Above all, oral cavity endoscope can improve the immediate cleaning rate and satisfaction for elderly patients, improve the communication effect between doctors and patients. In addition, it can help to build closer relation of the doctor and patient. At the same time, oral cavity endoscope also has the advantages of low cost and good effect, which is worthy of clinical application.