Dental Hygiene

As a dental hygienist, you form the diagnostic and preventive center for the entire practice.  You have spent the time and built trusting relationships with your patients. They count on you to identify their risk for disease and make homecare, diet and product recommendations specific to them.  Beyond the commitment to manage periodontal disease is the growing understanding of our responsibility to manage dental caries as the infectious disease that it is.

The latest research on the caries infection has now identified a few key concepts:

• This infection is not pathogen specific, it is a biofilm disease and there are now 23 identified strains of bacteria, any combination of which may contribute in an individual.
• pH is the strongest “selection pressure” that determines whether these cariogenic strains are present at pathogenic levels.
• There are some key risk factors that can determine our patients’ susceptibility to this infection.

Dr. John Kois states that “caries risk assessment identifies patients at risk for dental caries even before they have expressed the disease and best targets treatment for those patients that have already expressed the disease. We need to find ways, like CariFree, to help our patients move from the repair model to the wellness model.”

Solutions for Your Practice

• Develop a simple risk assessment protocol to determine your patients’ susceptibility to dental caries. This will help identify those patients who will need caries management in addition to restorative work.
• Take a look at the products you currently recommend and whether they work to treat the caries infection or just remineralize the damage.
• Take special consideration for the pH of products as neutralizing products encourage healthy bacterial growth.