Oral health - it’s not just about brushing
Information
This presentation aims to discuss how lifestyle factors such as nutrition, stress, sleep, hydration and medical status can impact oral health and how dental professionals can have positive discussions with patients to empower meaningful behaviour change.
As dental professionals it is our duty to ensure our patients’ mouths remain healthy. We do this by ensuring they are removing plaque thoroughly, providing them with oral hygiene advice or fixing dental issues that can arise due to poor oral hygiene, lifestyle choices or trauma. However, this is just the starting point. There is growing evidence for how other lifestyle factors are crucial in maintaining a healthy mouth and how they could be considered as part of routine practice.
Learning objectives:
- Understand the evidence behind certain lifestyle factors affect bacterial diversity and how they contribute or oral health or disease
- Acknowledge that dental professionals can be on the frontline of helping paitients with their oral and overall health
- Implement positive reinforcement techniques to help patients consider both brushing and lifestyle havits to improve their oral health
This lecture meets the criteria for category D of the GDC's development outcomes for enhanced CPD (maintenance and development of knowledge and skill within your field of practice)
