Dental Care and Oral Health Sourcebook, 6th Ed.

Oral health is essential to overall health. Good oral health includes more than maintaining healthy teeth and gums. Oral health also involves avoiding craniofacial conditions that can affect the face and mouth. These conditions can lead to systemic health conditions such as infections, immune disorders, cancer, or heart and lung disease. While there has been significant improvement in the oral health of Americans over the past 50 years due to increasingly effective prevention and treatment efforts, some challenges remain and new concerns have emerged. One important emerging oral health issue is the increase of tooth decay in preschool children. In addition, lack of access to dental care for all ages remains a public health challenge.

Dental Care and Oral Health Sourcebook, Sixth Edition offers updated information about mouth and tooth care guidelines for effective hygiene, nutrition, and decay prevention. Facts about tooth pain, dental fillings, orthodontia, and other endodontic treatments, and dental implants are described. Facial trauma and cleft palate treatments are also discussed. Disorders such as bad breath, temporomandibular joint and muscle (TMJ) disorder, mouth sores, jaw disorders, and health conditions that impact oral health are addressed. The book concludes with guidelines for finding and financing dental care, a glossary of dental care terms, and directories with further information about dental care and oral health services.

The book is divided into parts and chapters where parts focus on broad areas of interest and chapters are devoted to single topics within a part.

Part I: Taking Care of Your Mouth and Teeth begins by outlining key steps for good dental health and provides an overview on the anatomy of the mouth. Information on home care products used to clean teeth and remove dental plaque is provided. The impact of nutrition and fluoride is described along with information about mouth injuries. Oral health for older adults is also discussed.

Part II: Visiting Your Dentist’s Office explains common procedures, such as X-rays, fillings, sedation, air abrasion, and dental lasers for tooth pain. Details about types of dental restorations, having a tooth pulled, rebuilding and reshaping, and denture choices are also provided.

Part III: Dental Care for Infants and Children offers strategies for initiating and maintaining healthy primary teeth. Fluoride treatments and sealants with adequate calcium intake are addressed. Other specific concerns for children, such as teething, childhood bruxism, and the impact of sugar and snack foods on children’s oral health, are detailed. It also discusses the importance of routine dental care visits and preventing tooth decay. The part ends with information on finding and visiting dental clinics for children.

Part IV: Orthodontic, Endodontic, Periodontic, and Orofacial Procedures offers details about braces and retainers, along with information about treatment for endodontic conditions, periodontal (gum) disease, and dental implants. Facial trauma and corrective jaw surgery are also discussed.

Part V: Oral Diseases and Disorders provides information about bad breath, burning mouth syndrome, cleft palate, dentinogenesis imperfecta, jaw problems, mouth sores, oral cancer, thrush, and tongue tie. Dry mouth disorders, such as sialadenitis and Sjögren’s syndrome, are also explained.

Part VI: Health Conditions That Affect Oral Health describes specific medical conditions that cause—or result in—oral complications, including cancer treatment, celiac disease, diabetes, heart disease, immune system disorders, organ transplantation, osteoporosis, and the use of tobacco or illegal drugs.

Part VII: Finding and Financing Oral Health in the United States provides information on oral healthcare status and factors that impact access to oral healthcare. It reviews average dental expenses for dental care and includes suggestions for finding low-cost dental care. Specific information about school-based oral health services is also provided.

Part VIII: Additional Help and Information provides a glossary of terms related to dental care and oral health. Directories of local dental schools and other dental care and oral health resources are also included.