Oral Hygiene 2 – Dental implants

During the previous post, the essential role of oral hygiene for maintaining healthy gums and thereby preventing gingivitis and progressive periodontitis were discussed. In most clinical situations, either as a result of advanced periodontitis that cause mobile teeth or as a consequence of severe dental caries or decay that breakdown teeth, dental extractions become imperative. Restoring missing teeth with fixed restorations through dental implants is standard of care in today’s modern evidence based dental practice.

Although dental implants are not susceptible to destructive events associated with dental caries, it is important to note that the soft tissue and bone around implants are exposed to similar types of microorganisms that cause gingivitis and periodontitis; and the equivalent of these infections around dental implants is known as mucositis and peri-implantitis respectively.

For healthy tissues around implants, it is absolutely essential that the oral health and the overall dental hygiene be strictly maintained around implant supported crowns and dentures. In fact, dental implants need more meticulous care because of the nature of the connections between implants and implant supported artificial teeth. From this context, international standards recommend scaling or professional cleaning at least every six months for maintaining healthy tissues around dental implant.