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A well-preserved oral function is key to accomplishing essential daily tasks. However, in geriatric medicine and gerodontology, as age-related physiological decline disrupts several biological systems pathways, achieving this objective may pose a challenge. We aimed to make a systematic review of the existing literature on the relationships between poor oral health indicators contributing to the oral frailty phenotype, defined as an age-related gradual loss of oral function together with a decline in cognitive and physical functions, and a cluster of major adverse health-related outcomes in older age, including mortality, physical frailty, functional disability, quality of life, hospitalization, and falls. Six different electronic databases were consulted by two independent researchers, who found 68 eligible studies published from database inception to September 10, 2022. The risk of bias was evaluated using the National Institutes of Health Quality Assessment Toolkits for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies. The study is registered on PROSPERO (CRD42021241075). Eleven different indicators of oral health were found to be related to adverse outcomes, which we grouped into four different categories: oral health status deterioration; decline in oral motor skills; chewing, swallowing, and saliva disorders; and oral pain. Oral health status deterioration, mostly number of teeth, was most frequently associated with all six adverse health-related outcomes, followed by chewing, swallowing, and saliva disorders associated with mortality, physical frailty, functional disability, hospitalization, and falls, then decline in oral motor skills associated with mortality, physical frailty, functional disability, hospitalization, and quality of life, and finally oral pain was associated only with physical frailty. The present findings could help to assess the contribution of each oral health indicator to the development of major adverse health-related outcomes in older age. These have important implications for prevention, given the potential reversibility of all these factors., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to American Aging Association.)

The diagnostic process for temporomandibular disorders (TMD) is complicated by the multifactorial etiology and multiplicity of clinical signs and symptoms characterizing such disorders. Several electronic instruments and radiological techniques have been proposed over the years in the attempt to integrate clinical evaluation of TMD patients. Nonetheless, literature data still suggest that TMD diagnosis should be based on a thorough clinical assessment and international classifying scheme, also rely on standardized clinical tests to categorize TMD patients. Imaging techniques should be used to gain a better insight within the temporomandibular joint, reserving magnetic resonance to the depiction of soft tissues and computerized tomography to bone structures. EMG-based devices failed to prove effective in improving the diagnostic process for TMD, since a lack of correlation between instrumental signs and patients' symptoms has been showed. The TMD diagnostic process also relies on a psychosocial assessment of patients, which can be useful to detect a psychosocial impairment that needs to be addressed at the therapeutical level.