Presented by: Michelle Strange, MSDH, RDH
Course Description: The practice of being a dental hygienist has long been focused on calculus removal. But, why? Is calculus the cause of dental disease? What if we stepped off our scale, polish, floss hamster wheel for a moment and really thought about why we are putting a scaler to the tooth? When we are polishing away stains, are we doing more harm than good? What if we rethought our patient care process and placed behavior change and motivation as the most important part of the appointment? If disease prevention is based on at-home biofilm management (amongst other variables), flipping the appointment, and first coaching the patient vs. leaving it to last could be the change we need. Helping patients prevent their disease is the game we should all be playing, and in this course, we will discuss other therapeutic approaches to patient treatment.
Objectives:
• Review the traditional dental hygiene appointment vs one that is focused on prevention
• Define motivational interviewing
• Discuss the difference between patient-centered and clinician-centered approaches
• Discuss product options and techniques to meet patients where they are