Meeting oral health needs to promote the well-being of the geriatric population: educational research issues.

This article reviews some of the more recent demographic changes affecting aging populations. The author expands the concept of aging to include persons who may be chronologically young but biologically old because they are medically compromised or developmentally disabled. It is not known how many persons can be included in this definition who will need care, and the question is what are their needs and how are we going to teach dental students and dentists to care for them. These problems are discussed, and some models of care are described.