Tucker Flashcards
How should a infant oral healthcare vist be viewed
- foundation for a lifetime of preventative education and dental care can be built to assure optimal oral health in childhood
Early Intervention: Recommendatoins
- Advise parents on their own oral health and transmission of cariogenic bacteria from caregiver to infant
- Dental home
- Provide caries prevention info
- assess caries risk
- provide information to parents regarding oral conditions to infants:
- pacifiers
- teething
- trauma
- growth and developement
- Ankyloglossia ifnromaton
- Natal and neonatal teeth
When should the Child’s First dental exam occur?
- at the tie of reuption of first tooth or no later than 12 months
Informed consent for exam
- Only legal guardian can give consent for an exam or tx
Normal Behavior
- Pre-cooperative
- 3 y.o. or less
- No psychosocial developement to understand the need to cooperate and interact positively
- Self-centered/ego-centric perception
- interact and listen to parent/caregiver exclusively
-
Expected to cry=Normal
- upsets parents
- try to minimize, but can’t eliminate
Knee-to-Knee Exam
- Parent sits upright in normal chair
- face dentist
- Parent holds the child in their lab w/child facing the parent
- child’s leg straddling parents waist
- Dentist sits in chair with knees touchng parents knees
- Parents and Dentists thighs form the table
- Child lies on back with head in dentists lab
- Dentisst supports back, controls head, and assists mouth opening if necessary
- Parent supports child, holds and controls childs hands with their own hands, and limits leg movement with elbows
Benefits of Knee-to Knee Exam
- allows child to remain in parents lab and their control
- helps reduce anxiety in the child and patient
- Establish roles before start of exam bc parents want to help verbally and physically
- parent=silent observer
Communication with parents
- initiate before first dental appointment
- can be do through
- Front desk staff
- Pre-appointment letter/packet
- can include health history that the parent can fill out before appointment
- don’t want to overwhelm parent with to much information
What you should communicate to parent before first appointment
- At time of the appointment their child will be the focus of communication
- Parents want to talk to you and this will prevent you from focusing on their child/patient
- Explain importance of allowing Direct communication b/w the child and dentist
- direct communication is necessary
- not communication when the parent repeats questions/instructions
- Let parents know up front that you will talk to them at length after the exam
- if they are insistent on talking before exam, have staff occupy child while you step away to talk
- have staff available for child after appointment also so the parent can pay attention
Topics to review with parents
- Always address their chief concern
- oral hygiene instruction
- feeding habits
- especially night-time
- limit sippy-cup/bottle use
- Etiology of caries
- Expectations for future
- eruption pattern for primary teeth
- exfoliation pattern
- normal situations that may cause concern
- Importance of routine recall
- Expectations for future dental visits
Addressing chief concern
- Parents w/no concern and know the need to establish a dental home
- so only present to have the initial exam
- Parents w/a concern
- usually very anxious about any perceived problem in a child at this age
- address with patient first
- don’t let it keep you from addressing other areas of communication that are important to first exam
- May present w/a child w/ECC or S-ECC and they think that you are going to resolve at initial appointment
- let the patients know what to expect for this appointment and future appointments
Oral Hygiene Instruction
- Frequency
- at least twice a day
- Duration
- 2 minutes
- adequate
- perception of brushing longer than actual time involved
- 2 minutes
- Technique
- horizontal scrub technique-most effective
- Floss interproximal contacts if present
- Guidance
- parents brushing their theeth very important for children at young ages
Feeding habits
- Sippy-cup (no-spill cups)
- used primarily to prevent spills
- Bad for them to constantly use and why
- no bottles or sippy-cups at night in crib/bed
- Once child is past nursing, only water at night if thirsty
- If child has unlimited access to the Sippy Cup
- should only contain water b/w meals
Caries Etiology Explanation
- Caries formation requires 4 things
- Time
- brushing frequency important
- Tooth/Host
- biofilm formation
- Bacteria
- thorough cleaning
- Fermentable carbohydrates
- affects oral pH
- Time
- If we can control and remove any of these, we can prevent cariest formation
Behavioral Expectations for future dental visits
- Discuss appropriate behavior expectations for differrent age groups
Procedural expectations for future dental visits
- Let parents know what to expect for their child
- helps communicate that we are tailoring the care to be sensitive to their child needs
- General indications and expectations for radiographic examination
- integral part of gaining informed consent
Child Friendly Office Design
- Office design will form first impression of child and parent
- Front Desk staff will be first point of contact with most parents and patients as they enter
- Make the child feel comfortable and “at home”
- Reduce anxiety associated w/the visit
- Increase the child’s willingness to listen and communicate
Communication with Young Children
- White Coat Syndrome
- How to approach a child on first encounter
- getting down on their level
- physically lower yourself so not to be imposing
- friendly demeaner
- speak in child friendly terms/language
- Behavior Guidance techniques:
- Tell, Show, Do
- Reinforcement
- Behavior Modeling
- Voice control
White Coat Syndrome
- Clinically observaed elevation of BP in patients when dealing with medical or dental procedures or personnel
- Used generally to refer to anxiety/fear that is often the cause of the elevated BP
- especially in pediatric populations
- Due to previous trips, children associate the white coat with pain/injections
Anticipatory Guidance
- way of conveying information to the patient that helps them undertand what should be expect
- age 0-3
- categories of information required:
- oral and dental development
- fluorides
- Non-nutritive habits
- Diet and Nutrition
- Oral Hygiene
- Injury Prevention
Prevention of Caries
- Easier to prevent caries than to treat after the carious lesion has developed
- Cheaper from a family/individual and societal standpoint to prevent oral disease vs treat
Expectations for normal dental developement
- Many 1 y.o. presents to establish dental home but have not teeth
- important to know the average age of eruption for primary teeth
- there are normal variations form this average
- important to know the average age of eruption for primary teeth
- When to expect primary teeth to exfoliate and when to expect permanent teeth eruption
- Common patterns of eruptions
- permanent mandibular central incisors erupt lingual to primary mandibular central incisors and before exfoliation
Anticipatory guidance for primary dentition: Eruption and Exfoliation

Anticipatory Guidance for Permanent Dentition: Eruption and Exfoliation
