Oral-Systemic Links: The Dental Professional's Role (155)

As oral health care providers, dental assistants play an integral role in helping create awareness of diseases and promoting optimal health outcomes for all patients. The oral cavity, with its complex interrelationships of microbes as well as the many distinct microbial habitats within it, has the power to spread the contagion to distant systems in the body and cause numerous diseases. The shared trait between oral diseases and systemic conditions is that they usually take a long time to develop before becoming clinically significant. Early intervention, such as chairside conversations personalized to the patient's current health status to create awareness, becomes a critical prevention strategy and can potentially pre-empt negative health outcomes, including death!

This interactive presentation is designed to engage dental teams to level up with the new understanding of how the pathologic condition of the mouth has a great systemic impact. Understanding dental assistants' key role in patient relationships will further deepen having learned how to provide valuable knowledge on oral and overall health connections, with every patient and at every dental visit!