Caries control is one of the most important jobs of a dental practitioner. According to the Department of Health toolkit that was provided to all the medical practitioners, the doctor must give importance to the fluoride toothpaste and the surgery application of fluoride varnish. But still, now the operative treatment is of more importance than preventive treatment. It is really sad to know that all the top health offices have not taken steps to ensure preventive measures in dental practice. It is strongly believed that “the Population Approach” has worked for our country. And it is only good for the prevention of dental disease and also it is good for the lessening of costs from the end of the patient. Though there will be many diseases that will be prevented in both ways, we prefer the preventive measures for dental diseases (Page, Weld and Kidd 449–450).
For caries, the main cause is caries. Every day, twice brushing the teeth with a fluoride toothpaste containing dentifrice can help the patients in this case. Again application of fluoride varnish is an effective way of reducing caries. Both the ways are highly recommended by the practitioners as instructed in the toolkit. For the part of the dentists, it is strongly recommended that they must make efforts to identify the other teeth that might have problems and try to prevent the problems in an early stage. This can give the dental team enough time to treat the tooth with extreme care and precision and save the tooth (Quinonez 164-170).
Sometimes children under six years of age have serious dental problems. But it is not said that caries is a risk factor, but it insists that caries is one of the most important predictors of risk at a young age. And if a child is diagnosed with caries, then he or she must be treated with utmost care and the dentist must ensure that he must take enough precautions so that caries must not return or it might start any other dental disease. It has to be remembered in this point of discussion that caries, whether happened at a young age or in the later part of life, it does not have any discrimination at all. It progresses at the same rapid rate for any person belonging to any age group. Caries preventive measures of the children include preventive measures like active non-cavitated lesions. Earlier, non-cavitated lesions were not counted as dental problems and were overlooked. Generally, no radiographs were taken. But this thing does not take much time to change or spread. And due to the late start of treatment, the child might lose the tooth. Sometimes dental decay takes time in the case of a child and the physician must understand the seriousness of the child’s dental problem and ensure that the tooth must stay (Zimmer 154).
A policy of providing fluoride toothpaste in schools can help control the caries problem in children. According to the tool kit, a dental practitioner must, along with providing treatment to the patient must give oral hygiene instructions to the patient along with any dietary advice for his dental problems. Sometimes fissure sealing can be effective and then it must be done along with scaling and polishing of the teeth. And at the final analysis, the patient himself has to be interested in his treatment, and only then the dental problems can be solved by the earnest efforts of the doctors and nurses, and the Governmental program will be successful.
Works Cited
Page, Jane I., Weld, Andy and Emmy Kidd. Caries control in health service practice. British Dental Journal, 208.10, (2010): 449–450.
Quinonez, Robert B. Simulating cost-effectiveness of fluoride varnish during well-child visits for Medicaidenrolled children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med, 160.3, (2008): 164-170.
Zimmer, Allen. Health toolkit: Caries preventive measures. Auckland: IPCL Press, 2009.