Oral health is an essential part of our daily lives but is often taken for granted. Good oral hygiene and health allow us to comfortably speak, smile, eat and show emotion through our faces. Preventive oral health habits developed early in life can result in better overall health throughout a person’s life. Routines created to promote preventive measures, such as visiting your Edmonton dentist regularly and everyday dental care, can even help Canadians avoid the development of common oral diseases such as gingivitis or periodontitis.
Untreated Tooth Decay
Did you know one in four Canadian adults have untreated tooth decay? This equates to roughly 2.5 million adults. In fact, a sizeable number of Canadians actively go without basic dental work, which can result in greater risk of oral diseases. Oral diseases still create significant pain and difficulties for adults and children, particularly those who are lacking accessibility to dental care and services.
Access to Affordable Dental Care
When a patient lacks access to affordable preventive dental care services, it can promote the development of these oral diseases. If they are not educated on how easily these diseases can take form in your mouth, it is twice as likely they will develop an oral disease of some sort in their lifetime. Having access to affordable dental procedures can help decreases disparities in communities that are in need of oral health care.
Dental Care Needs Remain Unmet
Dental care remains one of a child’s most prevalent unmet needs in terms of health. For example, despite how much literature there is out there about starting children young when it comes to preventive care, cavities are still the most common health problem for children. Children in a lower tier socioeconomic status suffer twice as many dental issues than their peers who are able to afford dental care.
The heightened prevalence of tooth decay among children who are not able to access affordable dental care has a more negative impact on a family’s quality of life. Tooth decay can impact speech, nutrition, school effectiveness, and more. Children and adolescents with specific, special needs in terms of health care, are at the highest risk of dental caries.
Preventive Dentistry Starts at Childhood
Cavities that go untreated can lead to long-lasting effects on a child’s health, as well as the whole family. From severe pain and health issues to affecting school attendance and performance, as well a financial burden. And, the burden is worse for lower-income families because those children do not get timely treatment for cavities.
Many Canadians are at risk of being uninsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes, including people of color and low-income individuals. For instance, low-income individuals are more likely to be uninsured relative to Whites and those with higher incomes, which is a key reason they have limited access care, receive poorer quality care, and experience worse health outcomes.
Lack of Insurance is a Barrier
Without insurance, there is a significant impact on obtaining good oral health care, which also puts pressure on our healthcare system. For every individual without medical insurance, there are roughly three people without dental insurance. Dental care, as a result, is one of the top health services people put on the back burner due to lack of benefits to help out with the costs.
When there is a lack of access to oral health care coverage, it can have serious repercussions, including the development of dental diseases, costly procedures, and missed days at school or work. Emergency hospital visits are another consequence of insufficient dental coverage, which is a wasteful visit to the emergency room when the ailment could have been preventable.
Emergency hospital visits have grown substantially over the past decade, most visitors being young and low-income adults. Furthermore, most emergency rooms don’t provide dentist staff and procedures, which results in patients being prescribed painkillers or antibiotics.
Poor oral health can greatly impact a child’s learning abilities. Oral diseases such as cavities can cause depression, inability to focus, a loss of appetite – which can all lead to decreased school attendance and learning performance. Children in low-income families that have lack of access to preventive dental care miss school 3 times as much as kids that do have access.
Inadequate preventive care combined with untreated oral disease can have irreversible, long-term consequences. Teeth and gums can develop serious infection and disease over time, which will require costly treatments or procedures, or even loss of teeth. When you adopt good oral hygiene habits at the early stages of your life, you are able to maintain optimal oral health well into your late years. This helps you avoid physical pain and emotional suffering that are incurred by these oral diseases.
Why is Preventive Oral Care So Important?
Having access to preventive oral health care measures is important for the following reasons:
- Oral diseases are preventable with early treatment and preventive dental care measures. Dental sealants, for example, can help prevent 80% of children from developing cavities.
- Preventive oral care can save money in the long run as it can help decrease the need for expensive dental procedures that are utilized to treat patients with developing oral diseases.
The Value of Dental Sealants
Dental sealants are one example of implementing preventive dental measures. They are a thin, plastic coating treated to the chewing surface of the teeth. This helps form a shield and seals out the development of decay in children. They have had a huge impact on cavity prevention and can save parents from having to leave work to take their children to the dentist to treat cavities as a result.
Oral Disease Adults Face without Preventive Dentistry
Periodontal Disease
Adult patients lose more teeth to periodontal disease than to tooth decay after the age of 35. If your daily dental routine of brushing and flossing your teeth has diminished in frequency and you have not been visiting your dentist for regular dental cleaning, you are allowing bacterial plaque and tartar to build up on your teeth. The plaque and tartar cause damage to your jawbone and other support structures in your mouth, as well as, loosen your teeth and over time may require periodontal surgery. This disease is preventable with the right preventive measures implemented.
Oral Cancers
Men over the age of 40 are at the greatest risk of developing oral cancer. Approximately 35,000 people will develop cancer of the mouth, tongue, or throat area and roughly 6,850 will die from these cancers. Smoking or using tobacco products and excessive alcohol consumption can increase the risk of oral cancer. You are able to get an oral cancer screening done by your local dentist to ensure you are not developing this ailment.
Dental Fillings Break Down
Dental fillings can last 8 to 10 years and some can last 20 years or more. When fillings start to break down, food and bacteria can be wedged underneath them and cause tooth decay to go deep in your teeth. This can affect the nerve and possibly result in the need for a root canal treatment. If your tooth structure breaks down with the filling, you will need a full crown or root canal to help restore your tooth.
Temporomandibular Joint Problems
Oral habits such as grinding or bite irregularities can lead to temporomandibular joint problems that can be painful. There are many things that can cause your bite to shift, having extracted teeth can cause your teeth to shift significantly. Over time, the joints in your mouth can be affected and create pain that can result in your jaw locking. This is one of the reasons why dental implants are important.
If you grind your teeth while you are sleeping, you can have a night guard made to help alive the stress off your joints. It also helps you from grinding your teeth, which wears down the enamel on them.
Preventive Maintenance Helps
Preventive maintenance and dental care are just as important now as it was in recent years. You are not immune from dental disease as an adult and as a result, it is important to maintain good dental health routines and regularly visit your dentist for check-ups and cleanings. Your dentist’s job is to closely monitor your oral health and implement preventive measures to increase oral health and avoid oral diseases.
The same way you are to be mindful of your own oral health, you should be guiding your children towards establishing the importance of regular dental care from an early age. It is important that your dentist is introduced to your children, while they are young, to add to that importance of regular dental care, and how it can affect your overall health if not adequately carried out on a daily basis.
You should remember the words once said by a very wise man: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
