Chewing difficulty in older adults living in long-term care

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Carly Ross considers a review of the prevalence of chewing difficulty in older people in institutional long-term care. Only 10 cross-sectional studies were included in the review providing an estimated prevalence of chewing difficulties of 23% (95%CI; 1 to 53%) based on low certainty evidence.

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Oral health interventions in children and adolescents with special needs

Down Syndrome

Carly Ross takes a look at this review of different oral health education and promotion interventions for children and adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Eighteen studies were included but they mainly of very low to low certainty.

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Oral health self-care behaviours in people with a serious mental illness

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This review of the of oral health self-care behaviours in people with serious mental illness (SMI) included 33 studies. Most of the included studies (18) were cross-sectional and a mjority (20)were considered to be of weak design.

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Mobile applications and behaviour change in orthodontic patients

This RCT looked at whether Mentalization Based Treatment for Adolescents reduced self-harming beahviour

This review of the effectiveness of mobile applications and social media-based interventions in inducing behaviour change among orthodontic patients included 16 RCTs. While the findings suggest some limited beneficial changes in orthodontic patients the interventions are very hetrogeneous and not based on clear behavioural change theory.

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Prevention toolkit from Public Health England

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An updated version of ‘Delivering Better Oral Health, ’ the oral health prevention toolkit published iby Public Health England to provide practical evidence-based guidance for promoting oral health and preventing oral disease is now available.

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Lasers for treatment of dentine hypersensitivity?

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This Cochrane review of the effectiveness of lasers in the treatment of dentine hypersensitivity included 23 RCTs. The findings suggest that lasers may reduce pain intensity at short, medium, or long term when compared to placebo/no treatment. However the evidence is limited and of low to very low certainty.

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Plaque disclosing methods: Do they lead to improvements in oral health?

Plaque Disclosing 
Disclosing solutions

This review of whether plaque-disclosing (PD) methods, applied by dental professionals or at-home with verbal oral hygiene instruction (OHI)improved plaque control compared with OHI alone included 7 RCTs involving 430 patients.

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Rubber bristles interdental cleaners as an adjunct to toothbrushing

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This review of the efficacy of rubber bristles interdental cleaners (RBIC) as an adjunct to toothbrushing (TB) included 6 RCTs. The findings provide weak to very weak certainty evidence for the use of RBICs for gingivitis and plaque reduction.

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Curcumin mouthwashes for plaque and gingivitis

Tumeric, curcumin

This review of the efficacy of curcumin mouthwash on plaque and gingivitis in comparison with chlorhexidine included 6 RCTs. While the findings suggest that curcumin mouthwashes have promising anti-plaque and anti-gingivitis properties 5 of the 6 studies were at high risk of bias.

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Sugar free gum and streptococcus mutans levels

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This review of the impact of sugar-free gum (SFG) on the level of oral micro-organisms, specifically Streptococcus mutans included 13 studies 11 of whihc were RCTs. The findings indicated that SFG reduces the load of Streptococcus mutans in the oral cavity compared to controls but noe of teh included studies were at low risk of bias.

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