1level of Prevention

Preventive Dentistry
Prevention of Oral Diseases

Lec. 1
‫عذراء مصطفى‬.‫د‬
Preventive Dentistry is a branch of dentistry, deals with the preservation of healthy

teeth and gingiva and the prevention of dental and oral disease. The field involves
dental procedures, materials and programs that prevent the occurrence of oral
diseases or retard their further progression.
Oral diseases are affecting all age groups:
In children
a.Dental caries is the most common chronic childhood disease.
b. Over 50% of 5- to 9-year-olds have at least one cavity or filling; by age 17, the
percentage has increased to 78%.
c. As a part of childhood, children have many injuries to the head, face, and neck.
d. Twenty-five % of the children have not seen a dentist before entering
kindergarten.
e. More than 51 million school hours are lost each year to dental-related illness.
Adults
a. Most adults show signs of periodontal or gingival diseases. Severe periodontal
disease [measured as 6 millimeters of periodontal attachment loss (pockets)]
affects about 14% of adults aged 45 to 54.
b. Employed adults lose more than 164 million hours of work each year because of
dental disease and dental visits.
c. A little less than two-thirds of adults report having visited a dentist in the past 12
months.
Older adults
a. Twenty-three % of 65- to 74-year-olds have severe periodontal disease
(characterized by 6 millimeters or more of periodontal attachment loss). At all
ages, men are more likely than women to have more severe disease.
b. About 30% of adults 65 years and older are edentulous, compared to 46% 20
years ago.
c. Oral and pharyngeal cancers are diagnosed in about 30,000 Americans annually.
Nine thousand die from these diseases each year. Prognosis is poor.
d. At any given time, 5% of Americans aged 65 and older (currently some 1.65
million people) are living in long-term care facilities where dental care is
problematic.
Scope of Preventive Dentistry
1. Factors predisposing to the disease
2. Prevent the disease itself.
3. Factors encouraging the progress of disease
4. Complication of disease and deformity
5. Factors interfering with rehabilitation
6. Factors causing recurrence of disease.
Principles of Preventive Dentistry
1) Control of disease
a. Emergency treatment and relief from pain
b. Active caries should be controlled
c. Removal of plaque and calculus
d. Extraction of infected and decayed teeth.
2) Patient education and motivation
a. Evaluation and education by audiovisual aids
b. Home care
3) Development of host resistance
a. Nutrition and balanced diet
b. Water fluoridation
c. Topical fluorides
d. Use of dentifrices and mouth washes
4) Restoration of Function
a. Permanent restoration
b. Prosthodontic, orthodontic restorations etc
5) Maintenance of oral health
a. Periodic oral health check up
b. Follow up of instructions
Successful prevention depends upon:
• A knowledge of causation,
• Dynamics of transmission,
• Identification of risk factors and risk groups,
• Availability of prophylactic or early detection and treatment
measures,
Primordial prevention
Primordial prevention consists of actions to minimize future hazards to health
and hence inhibit the establishment factors (environmental, economic, social,
behavioural, cultural) known to increase the risk of disease.
It addresses broad health determinant rather than preventing personal exposure
to risk factors, which is the goal of primary prevention.
Thus, outlawing alcohol in certain countries would represent primordial
prevention, whereas a campaign against drinking and would be an example of
primary prevention.
Examples of primordial include improving sanitation (such that exposure to
infectious agents does not occur), establishing healthy communities, promoting
a healthy lifestyle in childhood (for example, through prenatal nutrition
programs and supporting early childhood development programs .Similarly,
increasing sports programs in schools may help reduce obesity in the
subsequent generations. As these are all population-level programs, primordial
prevention is conceptually linked to population health and health promotion, but
clinicians can play a role bringing problems to notice and advocating for action
on determinants.
Primary prevention
Pre pathogenic stage employs measures that forestall the onset of the disease, to
reverse the progress of the initial stage, or to arrest the disease process before
treatments becomes necessary.
Prevent, Arrest, Reverse
In other word, it seeks to prevent the onset of specific diseases via risk reduction:
by altering behaviors or exposures that can lead to disease,
by enhancing resistance to the effects of exposure to a disease agent.
Examples :Tooth brushing , Water fluoridation
Primary prevention generally targets specific causes and risk factors for specific
diseases.
By individual
A- Health promotion
1. Diet planning
2. Periodic visits to dental office.
B- Specific protection
1. Fluoride dentifrices
2. Intake of sufficient fluoridated water
3. Avoidance of sticky foods between meals
4. f. Oral hygiene measures
By dental professional
1. Health promotion
2. Patient education
3. Plaque control
4. Diet counseling
5. Topical application of fluoride
6. Pit and fissure sealant
7. Dental caries activity testes
Secondary prevention
Pathogenic stage employs routine treatments methods, to terminate a disease
process and to restore tissues as near normal as possible.
1. Complete examination by dentist
2. Fluoride used on incipient caries
3. Deep scaling
4. Restoration
5. Pulp cupping
6. Periodontal surgery
7. Endodontics
8. Exodontics
9. Early detection via screening procedures that detect disease at an early
stage when intervention may be more cost-effective.
10.X-ray
Tertiary prevention
Employs measures necessary to replace lost tissues and to rehabilitate patients
to the point that functions is as near normal as possible, after the failure of the
secondary prevention
1. Prosthodontics, removable and fixed
2. Implants
3. Maxillofacial surgery
Oral Disease:
In general dental diseases can be grouped in to four categories, these are:
1- Dental caries.
2- Periodontal disease.
3- Acquired oral condition.
4- Hereditary disorder.
The most prevalent oral diseases are dental caries and periodontal disease these are
known as plaque related diseases.
These are infectious diseases caused by bacteria of dental plaque.
Strategies to prevent, arrest or reverse the plaque disease are based on:
1- Reducing numbers of challenge oral pathogens.
2- Building up the defenses of teeth.
3- Enhancing the repair process.
Strategies in prevention of oral diseases
-Mechanical and chemical plaque control
Mechanical plaque control by using of tooth brush and inter dental cleaning
devices (as tooth picks, dental floss, inter dental brush). While chemical plaque
control is through the uses of chemo prophylactic agents as tooth paste and mouth
rinses (as chlorhexidine).
- Uses of fluoridated products either systemic or topical fluoride agents.
- Diet and sweet restriction by controlling the frequency and consistency of sugar
intake.
-Uses of fissure sealants, this will mechanically prevent accumulation of bacteria
on tooth surfaces.
-Health education, by:
- Patient's educations and motivation,
- planned programs as school based programs
-Public educational programs.

1level of Prevention

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1level of Prevention

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

1level of Prevention

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Preventive Dentistry

Prevention of Oral Diseases

Preventive Dentistry is a branch of dentistry, deals with the preservation of healthy

You might also like