Entrustable professional activities as a framework for longitudinal geriatric oral health curriculum reform in undergraduate dental education

Abstract

Population ageing is increasing the complexity of oral health care and creating new expectations for undergraduate dental education. Elder adults increasingly present with multimorbidity, frailty, polypharmacy, functional dependency, cognitive decline, and social vulnerability, all of which require dental graduates to move beyond procedural competence toward integrated, person-centred, and collaborative care. However, the literature continues to show substantial variability and underdevelopment in undergraduate gerodontology teaching, with inconsistent curricular structure, limited standardization, and insufficient attention to authentic clinical performance. Recent work in dental education also suggests that Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) may provide a practical bridge between competency frameworks and workplace-relevant assessment, yet their use in geriatric oral health education remains limited. This article presents a curriculum innovation framework for longitudinal integration of geriatric oral health in undergraduate dental education, informed by competency-based education, contextualized EPAs, constructive alignment, spiral curriculum design, interprofessional education, and programmatic assessment. On this basis, six context-sensitive geriatric oral health EPAs are proposed, together with a longitudinal curriculum model, suggested pedagogical approaches, and an assessment framework. Rather than being restricted to a single institutional curriculum, the model is intended as a flexible reform framework that can be adapted across diverse undergraduate BDS programs. EPA-informed curricular reform offers a theory-informed and practically relevant approach for making geriatric oral health teaching more explicit, longitudinal, interprofessional, and assessable in undergraduate dental education.