Effects of dental implant treatment on sleep quality in edentulous older people: A prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Edentulism and sleep disturbances are commonly seen among older people and cause serious negative effects on their daily lives. Edentulism can induce sleep problems by changing maxillo-mandibular anatomy and surrounding soft tissues. The effect of the treatment of complete edentulism on sleep disturbances is not sufficiently understood. The purpose of this cohort study is to detect how different treatment options affect sleep quality, daytime fatigue and sleep disorder breathing in totally edentulous elderly people. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Ninety-six individulas (50 male and 46 female) participated in this prospective cohort study. The patients were non-randomly assigned to three groups, fixed implant-supported prostheses (FP), removable implant-supported prostheses (RP) and conventional total prostheses (CP). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and the STOP-Bang questionnaire were calculated before (T0) and one year after (T1) their prosthetic rehabilitations. RESULTS: Although there was no statistically significant difference between groups in terms of mean PSQI (p=0.524), ESS (p=0.410) and STOP-Bang (p=0.697) scores at T0, there was a significant difference between groups in terms of mean PSQI (p=0.011), ESS (p=0.030) and STOP-Bang (p=0.024) scores at T1. The FP group, when compared to CP group was associated with significantly better scores in the PSQI (Δ = -3.399, 95% CI= -4.612 to -2.187), ESS (Δ = -1.663, 95% CI= -3.149 to -0.176) and STOP-Bang (Δ = -0.994, 95% CI= -1.592 to -0.397). CONCLUSIONS: Within the limitations of this study FP was associated with a positive influence on sleep disturbances. Randomized controlled trials will be needed to provide reliable inference on this association. Key words:Dental implant, edentulism, older people, sleep disturbances.