The importance of a healthy mouth in Parkinson's disease

The American actor Michael J Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease more than 30 years ago, when describing how he coped with the disease, said, “It's about getting…being comfortable and being functioning...functional on a day-to-day basis. And that's really the thing. It's about my comfort.”1Fox MJ Special Report on Parkinson's disease & The Michael J Fox Foundation.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la63uShbtscDate: Sept 30, 2010Date accessed: May 1, 2022Google Scholar His outspokenness about his disease has helped to illuminate some of the different aspects of this disease from an individual patient's point of view. Fortunately, Parkinson's disease is now receiving increasing attention, as evidenced by several recent publications, including that by Bastiaan R Bloem and colleagues.2Bloem BR Okun MS Klein C Parkinson's disease.Lancet. 2021; 397: 2284-2303Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (756) Google Scholar Alongside this, WHO recently published a technical brief,3WHOParkinson's disease: a public health approach. Technical brief. World Health Organization, Geneva2022Google Scholar in which the treatment gaps and critical areas for action are outlined. Despite the increased attention on Parkinson's disease, the importance of a healthy mouth for people with Parkinson's disease continues to be overlooked, which is remarkable given that the mouth is a crucial part of the body that enables us to speak, laugh, eat, and, as such, enjoy life. In its recently published report on oral health, WHO stressed the importance of ensuring good and accessible oral health care for all.4WHOGlobal oral health status report: towards universal health coverage for oral health by 2030. World Health Organization, Geneva2022Google Scholar Our contention is that the next necessary step is to combine the findings of both of these WHO reports to ensure that people with Parkinson's disease will also receive appropriate oral health care. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the oral health status of people with Parkinson's disease is still limited. In the past few years, what we have learned is that people with Parkinson's disease have more oral diseases, reduced oral functioning, and more orofacial pain than their peers without Parkinson's disease, which might negatively impact their quality of life.5Verhoeff MC Koutris M Tambach S et al.Orofacial pain and dysfunction in patients with Parkinson's disease: a scoping review.Eur J Pain. 2022; 26: 2036-2059Crossref PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar Despite these recent insights, there remains a lack of understanding regarding the importance of a healthy mouth in Parkinson's disease. Consequently, we wish to urge medical doctors and dentists to engage in collaboration by, among others actions, collecting high-quality evidence on this topic. In conjunction with this collaboration, it is also important that doctors and dentists become more knowledgeable of each other's domains, in an effort to be better able to manage the oral health of their patients with Parkinson's disease.6Lobbezoo F Aarab G The global oral health workforce.Lancet. 2021; 3982245Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (11) Google Scholar In turn, it is hoped that this would generate insights that would lead to an improved enjoyment of life for people with Parkinson's disease. HWB receives research grants from ZonMw and the Michael J Fox Foundation, unrelated to this Correspondence. FL receives research grants from SomnoMed, Sunstar Suisse, Vivisol-Resmed, Airway Management, Health Holland, and the Dutch Research Council, unrelated to this Correspondence. FL is an unsalaried member of the Academic Advisory Board of Sunstar Suisse for GrindCare. MCV reports no competing interests. Parkinson's diseaseParkinson's disease is a recognisable clinical syndrome with a range of causes and clinical presentations. Parkinson's disease represents a fast-growing neurodegenerative condition; the rising prevalence worldwide resembles the many characteristics typically observed during a pandemic, except for an infectious cause. In most populations, 3–5% of Parkinson's disease is explained by genetic causes linked to known Parkinson's disease genes, thus representing monogenic Parkinson's disease, whereas 90 genetic risk variants collectively explain 16–36% of the heritable risk of non-monogenic Parkinson's disease. Full-Text PDF