Ageism in dentistry: are we treating elderly patients or our assumptions about them?

‘Given their age’ is an excuse we’ve all heard many times – Sharif Islam debunks some of the ageism that patients face when seeking dental treatment.

Almost every time I’m in the gym, members inform me that ‘someone my age’ shouldn’t be able to, or even try to, move from an L-sit to a handstand on suspended rings, hold a front lever, or helicopter kick in an elevated split. And while I’m the first to admit that at my age merely getting out of a chair is now a Hollywood stunt that requires careful planning and copious warming up before making the obligatory middle-aged grunts, I seem to defy their expectations by performing all the aforementioned actions anyway. Well, so far, at least… (When I leave the hospital tomorrow I’ll see if that’s still true.)

But when it comes to our patients, many of us have read a familiar rationale in the notes to explain why a cavity wasn’t filled or a broken tooth wasn’t restored. Because, apparently, being a certain age negates the obligation for real dentistry to be undertaken, and excuses the supervised neglect and therapeutic nihilism that is unfortunately too often bestowed upon our more senior patients.

‘Given their age’ is a convenient pass to get out of the jail that would otherwise confine us to working on an ageing mouth with a multitude of problems – a mouth belonging to someone we perceive as having far fewer days ahead of them than behind them.

But the judgement that they haven’t much time left in the realm of the living is no more ours to make than the excuse to not correctly treat them because of it. Are we genuinely treating the individual sitting in front of us, or are we treating our assumptions about their age?

What is behind the ageism?