The notion that dentures and false teeth are a part of growing old is fast becoming a distant memory. Patients now have the expectation and belief that they will keep their own teeth for life, and are relying on the dental profession to help them meet this goal.

As life expectancy increases and our population ages, this is becoming an even greater challenge and meeting this challenge requires the adoption of a philosophy for whole of life management and maintenance of oral health.

Ensuring patients understand the impact of diet and lifestyle on their oral health is critical, and how the early interventions and treatments provided will impact on tooth longevity. It is therefore essential to use comprehensive, personalised approaches to develop the diagnosis and management of dental hard tissue diseases.

This presentation will focus on the preservation and restoration of tooth structure and how in dental practice we can assist our patients to retain, and where necessary, restore their teeth throughout life to ensure a healthy, functional and aesthetic dentition.

It will provide information and clinical guidance on how to manage patients at different stages throughout their life, to meet the various risks, and use the appropriate interventions to help patients keep their teeth for life as well as look at current knowledge and understanding of the health of the oral cavity, today’s diet, the importance of saliva, erosion, attrition, abrasion and modern restorative materials.

Course topics

Oral Impacts of Today’s Lifestyle

• Current diets
• Sports dehydration
• Hydration, saliva assessment and saliva parameters
• Soft drinks, sports drinks
• Early signs of erosion
• Restoring teeth damaged in sport
• Preventing and managing dental trauma
• Dental disease and general health

Risk Assessment for Caries and Tooth Wear

• Examination and diagnostic tools
• Impact of diet and lifestyle
• Medical and Medication issues
• Evaluation of the oral environment

Stabilisation and Remineralisation Strategies and Implementation

• Differences between erosion and caries
• Identifying and reducing risk factors
• Products and procedures available
• In-office and at-home protocols

Selection and use of restorative materials and techniques

• Age related changes to tooth structure
• Adhesive materials and nature of bonding interface
• Direct vs Indirect procedures
• Predicted longevity of restorations

Maintenance and stability of the oral environment

• Identifying ongoing and upcoming risk factors
• Devices, products and procedures
• In-office and at-home maintenance protocols
• Planning for the future

Course Objectives

• Examine today’s diet
• Understanding the effect of today’s diet and lifestyle on dental health
• Understanding product labels on today’s food products
• Understanding risk assessment and stabilisation of the oral environment
• Be able to assess general health and dental health and their long term influences on non carious loss of tooth structure
• Show modern restorative materials and techniques for using these products
• Develop protocols for management/maintenance of mouths throughout the lifetime of patients