PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY

Catalog description

This course teaches the principles of clinical practice of preventive dentistry, applied to individual and collective oral health care. It emphasizes the current concepts relating to the control of tooth caries development and periodontal disease, its prevention and diagnosis. The course also teaches the basic concepts of the main disease -preventive measures such as: oral health education, mechanical and chemical control of biofilm through methods that include the use of manual and mechanized instrumentation techniques. The students develop skills to guide their patients to improve and maintain oral health throughout life, as well as to modify other self-care practices of the oral cavity. Diet and nutrition are also discussed as elements of primary prevention. The laboratory portion of the course provides experiences necessary to develop proficiency in this field. Included are the most basic preventive dentistry procedures, such as educational strategies, mechanical and chemical methods of plaque control, care of removable prostheses, fluorides, sealants, desensitizing agents, supragingival scaling, coronal polishing, among others.