Although dental hygienists in BC are not allowed to prescribe any medications including at-home chlorhexidine (CHX) rinses, collaborating with other dental professionals to prescribe CHX rinse needs to be adopted in dental hygiene profession. I had noticed many of my

Client with severe caries and signs of oral infection

colleagues not working with dentists to prescribe CHX rinse in active periodontitis cases due to lack of time and fear of adverse of effect of CHX rinse – staining. For my practice, if I recognized any symptoms for oral infections, aggressive periodontitis, and uncontrolled chronic periodontitis, I worked with a dentist to make sure that clients would have in-home CHX treatment. All the clients were advised the appropriate use of CHX rinse, especially use it less than 2 weeks to prevent from getting stains. All the clients reported that they felt their oral pain/discomfort had subsidized from using in-home CHX rinse. I had a case in which the client had multiple caries, abscesses, and aggressive periodontitis. I helped him to receive in-home CHX rinse as soon as possible and his oral pain had significantly subsidized and his periodontitis had been relatively stable. I had prevented possible oral infections and stabilized progression of oral diseases using an appropriate use of in-home CHX rinse.

Edentulism was a common dental condition that could be found in Broadway long-term care facility. With continuous effort of educating care staffs regarding the importance of daily denture care led to better management of dentures. However, I had one incidence, in

Unidentified black patches on the soft-lining of lower denture

which an elder was wearing her lower denture that had been covered with unidentified black patches for several months. The alarming news was that even though the caring/nursing staffs had recognized the patches on the denture, they had not reported the mobile dental hygiene unit or other professionals because they did not understand the seriousness of the denture condition. This incidence highlighted the lack of understanding among staffs to recognize normal and abnormal dentures and to properly manage dentures if they recognized abnormalities as well as there was still a lack of communication between staffs and dental hygiene unit in the facility. So I advised the nursing staff to isolate the denture until the issues of the denture would be resolved, contacted the family members and a denturist to notify the situation as well as further assess overall oral health status of the elder for any signs of spread of infections. The elderly fortunately did not present any other symptoms of oral infections and the process of having a mobile denturist into the facility and resolved issue took less than a week. The quick response to the incidence prevented possible oral diseases and further similar incidence by educating the nursing staffs.