Dentistry and Senior Citizen
The trip to the old folk’s home
As a student under the curriculum of health education, to bring about our service is now more than treating the patient illness but improving the patient whole being. This is what being taught to us in the lectures under the subject community dentistry. Recently, I have the opportunity to apply this knowledge and get hands on knowledge what health, community and dentistry are all about. What other best method than to dive into the community itself. Under the supervision and guidance by Professor Dr Noorliza, my friends and I visited a house of old folks or senior citizen 20 minutes away from the college. Such projects or activities like this are no longer a stranger to me as I did this frequently during my years of studying for my International Bachelorette diploma and for each project a similar report like this was also required. Therefore, the planning of our events would come as easily as I had experience such conduct before. However, this time around, the approach and set of mentality was more toward a dentist point of view and as a person who is to educate the community. The target group was senior citizen and the aim is to promote dental hygiene. However, the targeted group consists of people who are already wear out by time. The gap between our generations is pretty wide and there are almost zero to none topic of interest to be discussed. Nevertheless, such barrier is to be overcome and I tried as hard as I can to keep the conversation going and even slip in advices regarding importance of maintaining and monitoring the oral health. There were other obstacles also, with the old age, their senses started to deteriorate. The slurry speeches and their hearing also were not as well as they were in youth. What amazes me is how each person still put up a smile trying their best to enjoy our company. Though there were awkward silences now and then, we all manage to share couple of laughter here and there. I had the
As a student under the curriculum of health education, to bring about our service is now more than treating the patient illness but improving the patient whole being. This is what being taught to us in the lectures under the subject community dentistry. Recently, I have the opportunity to apply this knowledge and get hands on knowledge what health, community and dentistry are all about. What other best method than to dive into the community itself. Under the supervision and guidance by Professor Dr Noorliza, my friends and I visited a house of old folks or senior citizen 20 minutes away from the college. Such projects or activities like this are no longer a stranger to me as I did this frequently during my years of studying for my International Bachelorette diploma and for each project a similar report like this was also required. Therefore, the planning of our events would come as easily as I had experience such conduct before. However, this time around, the approach and set of mentality was more toward a dentist point of view and as a person who is to educate the community. The target group was senior citizen and the aim is to promote dental hygiene. However, the targeted group consists of people who are already wear out by time. The gap between our generations is pretty wide and there are almost zero to none topic of interest to be discussed. Nevertheless, such barrier is to be overcome and I tried as hard as I can to keep the conversation going and even slip in advices regarding importance of maintaining and monitoring the oral health. There were other obstacles also, with the old age, their senses started to deteriorate. The slurry speeches and their hearing also were not as well as they were in youth. What amazes me is how each person still put up a smile trying their best to enjoy our company. Though there were awkward silences now and then, we all manage to share couple of laughter here and there. I had the