Barriers to Dental Services for Older Adults

The goal of this study was to determine the bar-riers that prevent community-dwelling older adults from accessing needed dental care. We did this by identifying the unmet dental needs of a group of older adults who frequent senior centers associat-ed with NORCs. We chose this population because we wanted to focus on the unique needs of older adults living in the community who are support-ed by some degree of social services (NORC social workers and visiting nurses). We followed the older adults who needed dental treatment to determine whether they were able to access care. We inter-viewed those who were not able to access dental care regarding their barriers to getting needed dental services. Whereas the problem of poor oral