Only half of all Australians brush their teeth twice a day and it’s contributing to high levels of decay across the country, a report card on the nation’s dental health has found. A leading think-tank has published the country’s first comprehensive Oral Health Tracker and found a series of damning statistics about the state of … Read more
Indiana University School of Dentistry and IU School of Nursing students at IUPUI are learning clinical skills together through a newly developed experiential interprofessional education and practice program. Under the program, fourth-year dental students and final-year family and pediatric nurse practitioner students come together to learn assessments of the oral cavity and analysis of blood … Read more
Precancerous lesions in the mouths of non-smokers are more likely to progress to cancer than those in smokers, new research from the University of British Columbia and BC Cancer has found. Although tobacco use is still one of the strongest risk factors associated with mouth cancers, UBC dentistry PhD candidate Leigha Rock found that oral … Read more
Why Do We Have a Problem? The apparent epidemic of OSA which is occurring in all industrialized countries should not come as a surprise. Many in the sleep community routinely cite the increase in obesity rates over the last three to four decades as the cause of this epidemic. 1-7 There is no question that obesity … Read more
Many people experience a deep fear of sitting in the dental chair even though dentistry can significantly improve their health. By understanding a few key basics about the nervous system (and how fear, pain, and anxiety work in the body), you can help minimize pain, shut down fear responses, and decrease inflammation. This understanding can … Read more
Abstract The development of the dental drill was one of the most significant innovations in dentistry, occurring in the late 1800’s; 150 years later, it is still our “go-to” instrument for most procedures, whether for removal of decay, endodontic instrumentation or surgical extraction. We have witnessed these machines being powered in many different ways, as … Read more
Throughout history, successful treatment of a health condition has often preceded an understanding of what caused the problem. This is surely true of malocclusion. A malocclusion of any significance is not a disease but it does represent a failure of development. Understandably, the great majority of effort by the dental profession is directed towards treating … Read more
What is functional dentistry and why is it worth talking about? I am curious if this is a movement or new direction in dentistry. Here are my thoughts. Functional medicine and dentistry are using your detective skills and sleuthing out underlying root causes and abnormalities that have lead to a patient’s complaints or symptoms and … Read more
Before you were born, there were countless forces shaping your growth and development. You had your own set of prenatal conditions and a unique path to birth before your very first taste of oxygen. This inaugural breath was then shaped by primitive reflexes, breast feeding (or lack thereof), oral tethered tissues, oral habits, oral nasal … Read more
The search for the cause of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) by mainstream medicine has followed a profound predilection for autoimmune conjecture, in spite of the absence of evidence for any “mechanism by which the immune system is tricked into seeing myelin as foreign in MS patients,” said Dr. Bruce Trapp of the Cleveland Clinic. He continues, … Read more
They say a lady always knows when it’s time to leave and so it is with mixed emotions I tell you that I am retiring from the dental group and Newcom Media as of March 29th, 2018. I’ve only worked for the two largest publishing companies in Canada (many, many owners) since 1986, a feat … Read more
Sipping acidic drinks such as fruit teas and flavoured water can wear away teeth and damage the enamel, an investigation by scientists has shown. The King’s College London team found that drinking them between meals and savouring them for too long increased the risk of tooth erosion from acid. The research, in the British Dental … Read more
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported another peak of weekly visits for influenza-like illness last week, as provided by the US Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network. As this notably widespread flu season continues into February — and may bear more infections in the form of a second viral wave — researchers and physicians continue … Read more
Sedation and anesthesia for dentistry has come under scrutiny in the past few years due to a few tragic events where patients experienced harm. These events have raised several questions: are these just isolated incidents due to negligence in clinicians’ practices; did these patients pose unforeseeable challenges; and ultimately, what is the safety of dentistry … Read more
Introduction For dentists who have a keen interest in Cosmetic Dentistry, it is exciting when a patient expresses an interest to change their smile. It allows us to perform and deliver dentistry that can be immensely rewarding and life changing for a patient. Patients who have high esthetic demands can be a challenge but also … Read more
Preamble Since the appearance of HIV/AIDS in the mid-1980s, clinical dentists, academics and the profession’s regulatory agencies have been concerned about the possibility of an HIV/AIDS positive patient transmitting the infection to the attending dentist. A recent report in the American Journal of Infection Control categorically refutes this possibility. Prior to discussing these new findings, … Read more
Clinical Problem A 63-year-old female visited the dental clinic at the Jewish General Hospital with chief complaints of jaw pain, bilateral clicking, limited mouth opening, had migraine of 8 years duration, feeling fatigued and unrefreshed in the morning. The patient complains of TMD pain symptoms that began two years ago, involving both sides of the … Read more
Traumatic injuries to teeth and their supporting structures comprise approximately five percent of all traumatic injuries.1 Clinical and radiographic examinations are integral parts of diagnosis and treatment planning. Occlusal and periapical images have been suggested to determine the extent of damage to dentoalveolar structures. Due to their limitations as two-dimensional imaging modalities, it is necessary … Read more
There are various indications for deep sedation and general anesthesia (DS/GA) in dentistry, including anxiety associated with dental treatment, pre-cooperative age, traumatic or extensive dental procedures, and cognitive impairment or motor dysfunctions.1–3 Although many of the patients who fall into these categories require DS/GA in order to facilitate dental treatment, not all of them are … Read more
Given the epidemic of narcotic abuse in Canada, it is important we discuss choices when prescribing opiods. We should be both more pensive prior to picking up our prescription pad and more careful when prescribing opiod analgesia to our patients. It now goes without saying that we should optimize all means of non-opioid analgesia to … Read more