2023-04-19 21:36:10
In Spain the 96.2% of the population affirms that they brush their teeth daily. However, only 67.5% visit their dentist at least once a year. These data show that, although great progress has been made, there is still much to be done to Raise awareness about oral health care.
For this reason, and on the occasion of the recent publication of the ‘Sanitas Oral Health Study 2023′El Periódico de España, from the Prensa Ibérica group, together with Sanitas Dental, organized a talk by experts under the title ‘Present and future of dentistry in Spain’ in which some challenges faced by this discipline were addressed.
“Oral health is constantly evolving despite the fact that society still persists in going to the dentist when something hurts or when you begin to know that something is wrong,” he says. Manuela Escorial Garciadentist responsible for Department of Innovation and Clinical Quality of Sanitas Dental. He acknowledges that there is a trend of change and that the population has already assumed that they should go to the dentist at least once a year.
Maria Victoria Mateosdentist and member of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology and Oral Public Health (SESPO), agrees with the substantial improvement in oral care habits. “We work a lot for Keep healthnot only to promote habits but also to maintain them, and for this, it is necessary to raise awareness not only of the entire population but also of all government entities”, he insists.
Beatriz Serrano de Haro, doctor-dentist in the clinic Dr. Serrano de Haroexplains that dentists treat the two most prevalent pathologies of humanity, caries and periodontal disease, and points out that they are now added to the prevalence and incidence of bruxism after the pandemic. Remember that in the West 90% of the population clench their teeth and that we are moving towards a world in which “we are all going to need splints”. He stress and dental wear it also affects children and athletes, says Elisa Carballido Ferreira, dental hygienist and member of the Governing Board of the College of Hygienists of Madrid.
At this point, value the work of the hygienist, an “essential figure for education in prevention and promotion of oral health”. These professionals are in charge of educate and prevent patients, but also to advise them on something as simple as proper brushing of their teeth, since sometimes “the most basic things are not even known”, continues Carballido. “You can tell the patient to brush his teeth three times a day, but maybe he brushes them wrong. So you have to sit down with him and take time to explain the technique of brushing”.
The SESPO dentist, María Victoria Mateos, remarks that “we are used to paying for sickness and not for health” and therefore insists that “we must dedicate time to prevention and teach our patients to brush well, floss, etc.”
Prevention
Although the population is gradually understanding that care should be a daily habitthe experts demand more support and request a oral health maintenance program “You have to stop thinking that going to the dentist is linked to lifting a turbine; That has to change, we have to start thinking that we are going to be told that we are fine”, emphasizes the dentist Manuela Escorial.
He reports that many patients do not come to the consultation until they are at their limit and claims that “we must bet on prevention from the first moment, with preventive care and treatment”. “If we do not prevent and avoid problems, solving serious pathologies in sick mouths makes complex and expensive treatments”, adds Beatriz Serrano.
Escorial assures that there is a lot of talk about primary prevention, but recalls that there is “a fundamental cohesion with the secondary prevention”. It is important that when a patient receives an implant or a prosthesis, they are explained what Steps you need to take to take care of itsince “it is a solution that has to coexist with the rest of the teeth you have in your mouth,” explains the Sanitas Dental specialist.
General health
“Have a good oral health is having good general health”, indicates Elisa Carballido Ferreira, who points out that the oral cavity is the main entrance to our body.
According to him Sanitas Oral Health Study 2023, 40.1% of pregnant women have had some oral health problem, mainly caries (36,8%). Carballido emphasizes the importance of raise awareness and educate mothers during this process “so that when their child is born they know all the resources out there. Before there was nothing, but thanks to the industry, we have a wide range of possibilities to achieve good oral health”.
The Sanitas Dental expert agrees with this idea that “there is increasing evidence of the link between oral and overall health” and confirms that it is a two-way relationship. “I think it is essential involve the dentist in the detection and referral to the doctor of chronic pathologies that we live in the first world”, he points out, although he acknowledges that there is still a long way to go.
Beatriz Serrano considers that oral health should “be part of systemic health” because there is an interrelation and is committed to “the general health professionals and oral health professionals work together”. He highlights, in turn, that it is necessary to “interact much more than we do at a professional level; we want the patient to get involved, but we also have to get involved to provide the population with that whole that is health in general”.
According to him WHO 2022 Global Oral Health Status Reportthe total number of cases of oral diseases in the world exceeds the cases of 5 main non-communicable diseases (ENT) (mental disorders, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer).
High sugar consumption, tobacco in all its forms and alcohol consumption are important public health challenges for a wide range of NCDs, also being the Main modifiable risk factors for oral diseases. Therefore, prevention policies have an identical objective: to reduce common risk factors. improve dietreduce tobacco use o improve hygiene habits They are common objectives with which an improvement in different health problems is going to be achieved.
digitization
Manuela Escorial stresses that “dentistry in Spain has a very high level and progress is being made not only in the modernization of equipment and digitization, but also in research. We have very good researchers and many open lines”.
The Sanitas Dental dentist also indicates that there are currently numerous digitization tools at a preventive level and highlights the turnaround that oral health has given thanks to technology: “Now we have the possibility of working with much more conservative materials for the tissues of the mouth, we have the ability to do it with a precision and accuracy that we did not have before; we can reduce treatment and appointment times”.
“Procedures that used to take a long time are increasingly more predictable and less complexand now we can treat patients more conservatively, less invasively and with greater safety”, he remarks.
The doctor-dentist at the Dr. Serrano de Haro clinic affirms that digitization is not the future but the present of dentistry: “We have digitized the history, the data collection, the relationship with the laboratory and the interprofessional relationship is carried out through webinars”.
Another great advance has been the implementation of video consultations. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the fact of having a professional with whom you could speak and who screened to determine if your pathology was urgent was very useful. This system has been implemented and is still used today in certain situations/medical disciplines”, says María Victoria Mateos (SESPO).
In the opinion of the Sanitas Dental expert, this tool “has transformed the relationship between patient and professional”, but recalls that it continues to be “a support resource to a relationship that will always be in face-to-face format”. An idea shared by Beatriz Serrano, who maintains that there is a risk of a regression, that the interprofessional relations and time spent actively listening to patients is lost.
“The healthcare professional, so immersed in digital processes, could forget about look at the patient and listen. So I think we need to keep the things we do much better in the analog world and continue to put patient in the center listen to him, look at him or help him”, he explains.
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