Effects of ethnic, age, and bereavement on complete denture patients.

Geriatric patients in prosthodontics require neverending patience and a unique consideration of the "healing" concept. Old people may act helplessly and hopelessly, and even though they are cooperative during treatment, they may lack the capacity to verbalize their distress. The dentist must look for unspoken clues instead, keeping an eye open for various possible factors which might explain a patient's behavior. Many elderly people have experienced the loss of a spouse or other relative. Usually such experiences are associated with increased rate of disease and death and certainly qualify as a severe psychological trauma. Because the effects of bereavement in the prosthodontic patient are often inconspicuous, they pose a diagnostic challenge. The most important direct conclusion to be drawn from this study is the overwhelming importance of patients' ethnoclutural background which shapes the basic characteristics of their response. People of Oriental origin tended to increase their (indirect) expression of emotional distress after bereavement, while Ashkenazis reacted to bereavement with decreasing complaints. Maximum results can be attained in treating prosthodontic patients when their ethnocultural and socioeconomic behavioral determinants of their therapeutic response are based upon these data.