Oral Health Essay

Maintaining oral health is extremely important not only for your mouth, but for your overall health (Wallace, Taylor, Wallace & Cockrell, 2010). Poor oral health impacts a person’s quality of life and general health, It causes pain which could result in poor nutrition (Griffin, Jones, Brunson, Griffin & Bailey, 2012). The residents at Menarock aged care have a private dentist from Alpha dental that visits the facility when prompted, although some resident’s families take them to their own family dental professional.
Elderly have long been identified as a high risk group for dental disease and poor oral hygiene care. The major barriers to affect good oral hygiene care can include lack of available staff and lack of appropriate oral health knowledge

The comparative need was particularly useful as other oral health projects were carried out for the same community topic, aged care facilities.
Two oral health community projects were found, ‘Oral health for older people’ by the South Australia Dental service project which was published in 2007 (Slade, 2007) and the other “Caring for oral health in Australia residential care’ by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Canberra, published in 2009 (Australian Government, 2009). On each example served as a great guide and template for understanding the different strategies to obtain their objectives between the facilities.
The mains needs found in both the previous projects comprised of care for residents with dementia and uncooperative residents, more training for oral assessments, education with denture care and provision of preventative oral hygiene care

The key stakeholders for Menarock aged care facility were contacted in the early stages of the project and were keen to participate. This participation included the facility itself, the personal care assistants and residents agreeing to being involved in the project as participants. Possible partnerships for the oral health community project at Menarock will be dental companies from Colgate and Oral B to provide samples for the residents.
Indicators that will aid in measuring the success and progression of the program will include both performance and visual indicators and evaluation form.
The personal care attendants will understand the importance of denture care, this program will equip each individual with the skills to perform consistent denture care across the facility. The PCA’s will demonstrate and perform comfortable, ergonomically correct and appropriate brushing technique for oral health care.
If the aim is achieved, residents will be provided with optimal denture care including correct cleaning and storage handling, this will improve the quality of oral health for denture