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Hello vistor, My name is Anna Chen and I am currently a 4th year dental hygiene student at UBC. For easy access to my reflections, just simply scroll down! Well, actually I had some technical difficulties. To learn more about … Continue reading
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Figure1. Arielle sitting on a disinfected chair.
As dental hygienist it is important to follow through with universal precautions as we are exposed to varying diseases. Infection control would protect both the clinician and the client or community. My community group and I incorporated proper infection control knowledge even in the community setting. In the community setting at Pioneer house, we set up our “clinic” in their arts, and tv room. Hence, we had to utilize radio, pool table,chair surfaces as areas to place our instruments. To prevent the spread of disease we used double layer of bibs,wiped down twice and barrierred door handle. We also set up and labelled an area for the used instruments.
Despite not being in our usual dental office clinic setting, we translated the knowledge of infection control. We prevented the spread and acquisition of oral disease.
Figure 1. The outside view of BPL
At Broadway Pentecostal Lodge I provided care for a 98 year old lady. During the assessment I found a lesion at the floor of the mouth. I recorded the lesion description measurements, colour, appearance,texture. My clinical instructor also took a look and took an intraoral picture. We followed the protocol of the site by taking immediate action since it was causing the client discomfort. We consulted Dr. Laronde and we also put an order up for the client’s medical doctor to come take a look. As a result, nystatin was applied topically in that area. The following week I found out that the lesion was most likely some type of fungal lesion as it has started to resolve. On the third week follow-up the lesion had no longer the whitish-yellow cheese curd appearance and no longer was giving the client pain.
From this experience I reflected that through the following protocols, I had taken part in preventing the progression of the lesion.
Figure 1. This is the table clinic my group and I made.
At our externship sites in term 1, my group and I had our first exposure to the mental illness population. It was apparent that both Pioneer and Lina’s place had immense need for oral care. Upon completion of the situation analysis, review of the literature and assessments we were able to piece the puzzle together. One of the most predominating factors would be the lack of self-esteem and lack of motivation present in this special needs population. (1) As a result, our group decided to promote oral self care behaviour that tailors to the resident’s motivational and self-esteem. As these homes are transitional homes, we promoted the relevancy of taking care of their oral health to the advancement of the next stage of their lives. We talked about how research having disease free mouth was related to more smiling and more smiling was related to higher self-esteem.(2,3) Not only did we promote oral self care practices using psycho-social factors, we talked about overall well-being. As a result of our table clinic the residents were engaged and asked a lot of questions and some of them express that they did not know about a lot of the knowledge that we shared with them.
Please see the attachment for our pamphlet that accompanied the table clinic.pioneerpamph
Reference
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