Blog - Hospital-acquired pneumonia is killing patients. Yet there is a simple way to stop it (12 July 2022)

Summary

When hospital patients do not have their teeth brushed it can lead to them developing pneumonia—poor dental hygiene in hospital is believed to be a leading cause of hundreds of thousands of cases of pneumonia a year. In this blog for Medscape, reporter Brett Kelman looks at the link between dental hygiene and hospital-acquired pneumonia, which kills up to 30% of patients who are infected with it. He highlights a lack of understanding of the impact of failing to brush inpatients' teeth, in spite of a growing body of research evidence that links lack of adequate toothbrushing to pneumonia infection.