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There are great risks of diseases in the ageing population, and oral diseases are no exception. Poor oral health has profound negative impacts on the quality of life. It is therefore crucial to include the oral health perspective in the care for older adults. To meet the challenges associated with oral health in the ageing population, a formative intervention was launched. The intervention, called the TAIK project (=“Dental hygienist in a municipality organization”, in Swedish: Tandhygienist i kommunal verksamhet), meant that six dental hygienists served non-clinically as oral health consultants in five Swedish municipal organizations. The intervention formed an infrastructure and platform for work that benefits the ageing population and created a new basis for decisions regarding oral health in homecare. The aim of this paper is to explore how aspects of collaboration in an interprofessional and interorganizational intervention may lead to expansive learning. Expansive learning forms the theoretical framework of this study. The dental hygienists and the local head nurses were interviewed individually in-depth. Reflection documents from the dental hygienists were also part of the analyzed data. The conclusion is that the formative intervention was reliant of change which created a foundation for reciprocal understanding that led to expansive learning between dental care and municipal healthcare, with resilience and empowerment as crucial factors This research was funded by the Local Research and Development Board of Fyrbodal, Region Västra Götaland, Sweden, the Health Promotion Research Funding, Region Västra Götaland, Sweden, and the Swedish Order of Freemasons, Grand Lodge of Sweden.

Objectives To describe the development process of an instrument to assess the ability to manage daily oral hygiene and the cause of impaired oral hygiene. The instrument is initially aimed for use by the dental team in the ageing population. Background Oral hygiene is an important component of oral health. Inability to manage oral hygiene combined with other risk factors often results in poor oral health and impaired quality of life. Methods A guideline for instrument development was used during the construction of the instrument. The method included three phases: I. planning: the purpose and target group of the instrument were determined, and a literature review and qualitative focus-group study were conducted; II. construction: objectives were formulated, and a pool of items was built; and III. evaluation and validation, which included two pilot studies, interviews, item analyses and revision of the instrument. Results The planning and construction phases resulted in an instrument with 47 items comprising three parts: (a) interview, (b) clinical examination and (c) observation of activities of daily living (oral hygiene). After two pilot studies, the instrument was found to have good content validity. Analyses of qualitative and quantitative data resulted in a reduction in the number of items to 33. Conclusion OHAI can be a valuable tool as a preventive method to identify older adults at risk of impaired oral health. However, the instrument needs further evaluation before wider use.