Prophylaxis

Beautiful teeth and healthy gum stand for (mean, describe) youthful charisma and vitality.
How long this will take depends in the first instance on your daily dental hygiene.
In the second instance a professional cleaning will help to maintain all parts of your teeth
healthy, clean and white.
The daily cleaning with toothbrush and floss is an important personal contribution, which everyone can afford.
But persistent bacterial dental plaque, which is the main reason for caries/decay/cavity and parodontitis, need to be treated by professional preventive strategy:  Prophylaxis.

Dental Hygienist:

Dental hygienists are licensed oral health professionals specializing in prevention and treatment of oral diseases, as well as protection of patients' total health.
Dental hygienists play a vital collaborative and auxiliary role in our clinic to ensure the highest and most comprehensive and efficient level of oral health care for all our patients.
Services provided by hygienists may include:

  • Oral assessments (reviewing patients' dental history, evaluating the condition of the gums, teeth and mouth, oral cancer screening, dental charting)
  • Removal of dental plaque, calculus (tartar) and stains from teeth
  • Patient education about maintaining oral health (tooth brushing, flossing and nutritional advice) and preventing oral disease
  • Application of preventive materials (such as sealants, fluorides) to teeth 
  • Performing nonsurgical periodontal therapy, such as scaling and root planing, and supportive periodontal maintenance care, such as sub gingival antimicrobial irrigation
  • Performing prophylaxis for sealing and polishing teeth

Our dental hygienist is Mrs. Jolanda.

Professional cleaning:

Teeth cleaning (prophylaxis) by a dental hygienist removes tartar (mineralized plaque) that may develop even with careful brushing and flossing, especially in areas that are difficult to reach in routine tooth brushing. Professional cleaning includes tooth scaling and tooth polishing and debridement if too much tartar has accumulated. This involves the use of various instruments or devices to loosen and remove deposits from the teeth.
Between cleanings by a dental hygienist, good oral hygiene helps to prevent cavities, tartar build-up, and gum disease.

Caries Risk Test:  to clarify with Jolanda
The Caries Susceptibility Test is a simple 1-minute chair-side bacterial test for assessing patients’ caries risk. The patent pending CariScreen uses ATP bioluminescence to identify oral bacterial load and has been proven to correlate with patients’ risk for decay.

Oral hygiene is a basic factor for oral health. Poor oral hygiene leads to dental plaque-collections, which in turn can cause gingivitis eventually leading to periodontal diseases.
Dental plaque is defined as the soft adherent structured deposits, which forms on the tooth surface. It consists of a mixed bacterial flora, sometimes with desquamated epithelial cells and migrated polymorphonuclear leukocytes. It is not and should not be confused with food debris.
A number of plaque indices have been developed for assessing individual levels of plaque control.
The most important index is:

  • Oral Hygiene Index

The Oral Hygiene Index is composed of the combined Debris Index and Calculus index

  • Community Periodontal Index (CPI)

Three indicators of periodontal status are used for this assessment:

  • 1. gingival bleeding
  • 2. calculus
  • 3. periodontal pockets