Abstract
Oral health has increasingly become a priority issue for healthcare agencies in North America and worldwide. This review article attempts to (1) inform various healthcare providers of the risk factors that can arise from poor oral hygiene, specifically aspiration pneumonia; (2) report the mechanisms of bacterial colonization that are responsible for the development of aspiration pneumonia and the factors that can influence these mechanisms; and (3) propose an interdisciplinary approach to enhance oral care delivery that is imperative to limiting the risks of developing systemic diseases such as aspiration pneumonia.