Home Care with a Prescriptive Mindset: Setting Patients Up for Success

The Oral-Systemic movement has taken on a new responsibility within dentistry and the major brunt of that responsibility falls onto us as dental hygienists. I take pride in knowing my patients do not view preventative care as “just a cleaning” and it brings even more joy seeing each of them reach health in ways they previously did not believe was possible. Hygienists are preventative specialists and we are magical at instilling value within our patients. Never underestimate your knowledge and your ability to create change. The less-tapped-into power of our profession is our ability to encourage habit change not only with educating and treating periodontal disease but most importantly the power we have in allowing our patients to participate in their own health and it is not by tackling the daunting brushing and flossing routine. There is science proving we can better create change when our patients understand they are a participant in getting them to healthy. Learn from the latest scientific research and personal experience how following a prescriptive and personalized approach involving home care tools that reduce the most bacterial load which results in a reducing inflammation within the oral microbiome and systemically. Let’s get back to providing nutritional counseling and how we can actually set our patients up for success.