Dental home visit in Taiwan

Objectives: Dentist home visit is a special mode of dental service, which aims to provide dental treatment for patients with limited mobility or those who are unable to go out for dental care. As the people with multiple disability increases, so does demand for more dental home visit in Taiwan. Therefore, organizing dentists to provide dental home visit is necessary to improve the quality of life of individuals with severe disabilities in using dental health care services. The objective of this report is to address some important questions and set forth explicitly some factors for looking at the policy of dental home visit. Methods: This report centers on empirical study which is primarily concerned with dental home visit in Taiwan and is based on literature reviews. Results: Dental home visit in Taiwan has a number of challenges. One of the problems is the inconvenience of the hardware. Another problem is the cost of dental home visit, which is not consistent and is one of the reasons why dentists are unwilling to participate. Moreover, the application process is complicated and time-consuming. Conclusions: The need of dental home visit service in Taiwan have not been met. Preventive actions may be the solution, including regular oral examinations of the elderly to restore chewing function, prevention of hypertension in order to reduce the incidence of stroke, and pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical therapy to delay dementia in the elderly.