Experience Is the Best Teacher: Manual of Dental

Patient motivation and communication are key elements in achieving high levels of oral health in your patients. However, these skills cannot be taught in the classroom, but must be acquired through clinical experience. This easy-to-read, comprehensive manual written by an experienced dental hygienist and educator offers techniques for communicating with patients that will increase both their understanding of and compliance with office and homecare procedures. Written in a direct and personal style, Experience Is the Best Teacher is an indispensable tool in any dental hygiene practice. Each copy of the book contains one sample copy of the patient information handout, Is This the Best Way to Preserve Your Teeth?.

This book is intended for the student of dental hygiene, but those who already work in the profession may also find it useful. The text describes some important aspects of the work of a dental hygienist, and it is based on the experience accumulated during my 10 years in the profession.

The manual is divided into seven chapters¯Periodontal Therapy, Motivation, Plaque Control at Teeth and Implants, Scaling and Root Planing, Instrument Sharpening, Treatment of Dental Hypersensitivity, and Maintenance Therapy at Teeth and Implants—that deal with various aspeccts of periodontal therapy.

The successful treatment of periodontal disease is dependent on a close cooperation between skilled professionals (dental hygienists and dentists) and the patient. After a careful examination of the patient with periodontal disease, the dentist must choose the appropriate periodontal therapy and organize an adequate treatment plan. Many scientific publications and textbooks related to periodontology affirm that the patient has to receive detailed information about periodontal disease and the relationship between its emergence and progression and the presence of dental plaque. The patient must, that is, be correctly informed if they are then to be adequately motivated.

However, few attempts have been made to describe how such detailed information may be presented and which problems must be overcome in order to make the patient properly motivated for the treatment intended. One aspect of the problem is related to describing the disease to the patient. The professional often uses a technical medical language to describe the etiology and treatment of periodontal disease, instead of choosing words that are easy for the patient to understand. During my work as a dental hygienist, I have encountered many different types of patients, and years of experience have taught me how to communicate and establish a successful collaboration with those who arrive at the dental surgery initially unaware of what periodontal disease means. In this book, I offer the reader practical advice regarding various aspects of the process of motivation, and I indicate some examples that can be used to help people affected with periodontitis to understand their disease more easily.

Once patients have been thoroughly informed about their problem and decide to take measures to resolve it, the task of the hygienist is to teach the correct procedures to be used in the home care of teeth and/or implants. An ample portion of this text therefore deals with oral hygiene and the various instruments that may be recommended to help the patient achieve satisfactory results in a self-performed oral hygiene program. Practical suggestions are also offered on how to choose the proper toothbrush, brushing technique, appropriate interdental instruments, and other adjunctive devices that may be necessary.

Professional cleaning must, however, be performed when home care alone is not sufficient to resolve the patient’s problem. In order to achieve adequate results, the hygienist must possess not only technical skill but also a good knowledge of the instruments used in periodontal treatment. Therefore, the fundamental characteristics of instruments for scaling are explained in a specific chapter that indicates with particular attention those that have enabled me to achieve excellent results even in cases where deep periodontal pockets were present. In the same section of the text, I also offer suggestions that I believe will be useful not only for operators who are right-handed, but also for those who are left-handed or ambidextrous.

The sharpening of instruments is another important aspect of the hygienist’s role. Maintaining unchanged the initial characteristics of curettes has always been a big problem, but it can be resolved using an extremely simple method of sharpening that is explained in detail.

During or immediately after the active phase of periodontal treatment, the patient may complain of dental hypersensitivity. This problem may be alleviated or solved, and the various methods that I have learned to prefer and have found to be effective are described in a chapter of this text.

Once the active phase of treatment has been completed, maintenance therapy must follow in order to avoid recurrence of the disease. The chapter related to this aspect of periodontal treatment offers practical advice as to what should be done during a recall oral hygiene appointment and the way in which an efficient hygiene service should be organized.

In writing this book, I have tried to use a direct, cordial style of communication, and I have also chosen to omit captions near the pictures in order to integrate the photographic documentation and drawings directly into the text to render its reading more fluid. I hope readers will find this manual both easy to consult and helpful in improving or refreshing their knowledge of some of the essential aspects of dental hygiene.