Preventative Dentistry

A healthy looking smile is something that everyone strives for. A health smile however is not all about having perfectly straight and white teeth. Teeth must be taken care of from the inside out. Taking good care of all your teeth is essential in order to keep them all in tact as you age. The necessary place to start with the proper care of your teeth is preventative dentistry. Preventative dentistry is pretty much explained through its name. Preventative dentistry involves properly taking care of your teeth in order to prevent dental diseases. One of the diseases that preventative dentistry helps with is the prevention of caries. Caries is a dental disease that “among 291 diseases and injuries” was “ranked the most prevalent” (qtd. in Hilgert
This is mostly due to the fact that dental sealants can only be placed on teeth that have never had any caries. Children are more likely than adults to not have these caries. In fact one of the goals of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is to increase “the proportion of children who have received dental sealants on their molar teeth to 50 percent” (Beauchamp et all 259). Potential targets for dental sealants also include people who take in a lot of carbohydrates. This is because carbohydrates feed the bacteria that leads to caries. Additionally people who have a limited access to fluoride and people who cannot afford dental care are prime targets for dental sealants. After meeting the criteria for dental sealant the next logical step would be to have the dental sealant
People who are thinking about getting dental sealants might just have one question. How are dental sealants beneficial? Well simply put they prevent caries. Caries cause extreme pain and make the oral cavity smell unpleasant. Dental sealants offer patients protection. They guard the pits and fissures where patients can’t reach. Even patients who don’t actively take good care of their oral cavity can have something working on their side to prevent caries. In fact there is evidence to back up the effectiveness of dental sealants in preventing caries. A study was conducted towards a group of low socioeconomic status children aged six to seven years old. The study required each child to have two or more advanced stage caries in primary molars and have a high risk of developing caries. The study divided the children into three groups. The first group of children had to do school-based supervised tooth brushing. These children were taught to brush their teeth properly and examined by dental assistants every day at school. They were told to brush their teeth twice every day. The second group received a composite resin sealant. The third and final group received an “atraumatic restorative treatment–high-viscosity glass-ionomer cement (ART-GIC) sealant.” (Hilgert et al 1219). The study’s results were calculated and the composite resin sealant proved to be seventy nine percent effective against caries after five