What has oral health related quality of life ever done for us?

摘要

Over the past 50 years, there has been a significant increase in life expectancy. At the population level, there has been a shift from a high prevalence of acute illness, with accompanying mortality, to a high burden of chronic illness in an aging population. There are within and between country variations in this trend, and there is evidence that the "improvement" in health has not been experienced equally across individual countries or regions of the globe. There is often significant morbidity associated with the consequences of chronic illnesses, and policymakers face major challenges in funding healthcare systems dominated by chronic disease management. While healthcare has been traditionally dominated by the measurement of pathological processes, it is now recognised that healthcare outcomes cannot be comprehensively assessed by objective measures alone. Whilst control of disease is important at individual and population level, the agenda for healthcare now includes the need to improve life quality as well as longevity. It is recognised that, for many people, the elimination of the consequences of disease is not achievable and such cases may benefit from shifting the focus of healthcare to palliation of symptoms rather than cure.