mHealth for Oral Care in Aging: A Narrative Review of Mobile Applications for Older Adults and Caregivers

Population aging is reshaping oral health systems in ways that are difficult to ignore. Such challenges become particularly complex in contexts suffering from strong social inequities, limited access to dental services and/or a growing dependency on informal healthcare. In spite of being largely preventable, oral and dental disease remain highly prevalent among older people. This results particularly worrisome since it is known that oral disease in the elderly has enormous consequences, well beyond the oral cavity and may affect nutrition, frailty and quality of life. It is in this context that mobile health technologies (mHealth) have emerged as potentially valuable tools to support, not only the promotion of oral health, but also its monitoring, education and the training of caregivers. However, it is not yet characterized, to what extent do existing mobile applications properly respond to the specific needs of the older population and their caregivers. This narrative review aims to critically examine the current landscape of mobile health applications designed to improve oral health in older people; with a strong focus on tools oriented to self-care, clinical monitoring, support to caregivers and training of primary attention personnel. We decided to follow the SANRA methodological framework, by summarizing the evidence published in the literature between the years 2000 and 2024 and further analyzing the application’s functionalities, their target users, their usability and the strength of the evidence supporting their development and implementation. Our findings reveal a substantial heterogeneity regarding scope, design and validation, as well as a persisting lack of culturally adapted solutions, focus on geriatrics and oriented towards caregivers. In spite of the potential, most applications show a limited clinical validation, a weak integration into health systems and an insufficient consideration of the cognitive, functional and social determinants of aging. Interpreted within global and regional policy frameworks, including the WHO Healthy Aging 2021–30 and the Global strategy and action plan on oral health 2023–30, these results highlight critical gaps and future directions for the development of equitable, evidence-based mHealth interventions in geriatric oral care.