December 21, 2022

According to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Americans got back 60 million hours of their time as a result of remote work during the pandemic. So how are people using this reclaimed time? They’re focusing on previously neglected health and wellness efforts. In 2019, the CDC estimated that only 64.9% of adults visited their dentist, while around 31.6% of adults had untreated cavities. Yet with more time to spare, people are refocusing on their oral health; but that’s just a part of the story. Life during COVID – with remote work, digital communication, and the doorstep delivery of everything – has changed the nature of patient expectations in dentistry. And the industry is evolving rapidly to meet them.

The New Normal Is Digital, On Demand, and Delivered

The aftermath of COVID-19’s peak did not return us to the routines and lifestyles we enjoyed in the before times; they produced a “new normal.” From crisis springs opportunity, they say. And people dealing with the limitations imposed during the outbreak learned to embrace some of these accommodations as convenience. No more driving to and from the office. Food and merchandise delivered to your door. Virtual medical and dental visits through digital platforms. For the most part, these things are here to stay. 

The pandemic reshaped and redefined countless aspects of our society, our approaches to work, and even our daily habits. Many of these new behaviors and expectations didn’t vanish along with shelter-in-place orders or imposed distancing. The unprecedented shift to remote work has endured, with employees resigning in droves at companies demanding returns to the office. Today’s workforce views work from home (WFH) arrangements as a benefit, and WFH or hybrid models will undoubtedly persist as part of the new normal. 

“Even as the pandemic has waned, more than 15 percent of full-time employees remain fully remote and an additional 30 percent work in hybrid arrangements (Barrero, Bloom, and Davis),” the Federal Reserve report noted. “These changes have substantially reduced time spent commuting to work; in the aggregate, Americans now spend 60 million fewer hours traveling to work each day.” That lost time has translated into a newfound concentration on wellness. 

Amazon changed the nature of commerce. Companies such as Uber spurred the growth of the “gig” or “sharing” economy. These models disrupted a wide variety of business sectors, from transportation to lodgings, entertainment, and business-to-business supply chains. Our increasingly digital infrastructure has empowered these shifts, but consumer demand is the catalyst for the explosive growth of an on-demand, doorstep delivery solution that has come to define the modern shopping experience. The onset of COVID-19 profoundly propelled these attitudes. And healthcare had to catch up during the pandemic. Now, it’s progressing alongside patient desires.

I Want It Now, I Want It Here

Even before the advent of COVID-19, which fueled the massive growth of delivery and e-commerce services, shoppers had already begun to rely more on Amazon than the brick-and-mortar stores they once frequented. The pandemic may have abated, but studies show that these purchasing trends did not. 

E-commerce surged during the pandemic, however studies from the International Trade Administration indicate that we will see a steady 8% growth rate through 2024.

The overwhelming conclusion business leaders must confront, regardless of their industry or customer base, is this: people want services delivered to them on their schedule. And yes, this will include dental care.

Teledentistry on the Rise

According to 2019 Health Center Program Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 43% of health centers were capable of providing telemedicine, compared with 95% of the health centers that reported using telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Surprisingly, telehealth remains strong, even though providers have been allowed to resume normal operations: “the percentage of all visits via telemedicine visits is slowly declining from its April peak. But it continues to be well above the prepandemic baseline of very few telemedicine visits.”

Virtual dental care, also known as teledentistry, is no longer a niche service offering. The pandemic may have ushered in widespread adoption, but its growth was gaining traction well before the outbreak of COVID-19. According to surveys conducted by DentaVox, nearly 80% of U.S. households said they expected to rely on it over the next five years. In some fashion, it’s likely to become a new standard in all of dentistry.

Teledentistry is the remote delivery of dental care, consultation, follow-up care, and education through telecommunications. The idea is as old as the telephone itself. But with advances in video conferencing and online platforms, the systems have become incredibly robust. Video consults connect the patient’s laptop, tablet, or smartphone to a dentist who diagnoses the problem and accelerates treatment options, which may include electronic prescriptions for antibiotics and non-narcotic pain medication. When follow-up care is required, next-day appointments can be booked. There are several advantages.

• Enhances the patient experience when physical visits aren’t possible through personal interaction with a dental provider by phone or video
• Minimizes the risk of exposure to the coronavirus for patients and dental professionals
• Significantly reduces the load on hospital emergency rooms related to dental problems
• Immediate online scheduling, expedited assessments and treatment recommendations, and faster access to a network of available dentists from the comfort of the patient’s home
• Private, secure, and fully compliant with information protection regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Video interactions may improve the quality of diagnosis because patients can better describe their conditions using body language, pointing to problem areas, or even showing what’s happening inside their mouths

But digital platforms and teledentistry systems represent only part of this equation. RDH Magazine noted that “as dental practices and health-care organizations increasingly explore ways to include mobile delivery into their current model of care, the mobile dentistry movement continues to gain traction as one of the most popular up-and-coming trends within the profession.”

As the current consumer trends persist, more and more people are demanding the same solutions from dental providers as they do from e-commerce sites and delivery services. So, they will expect an offering that combines teledentistry with a mobile component. 

Concierge Mobile Dentistry

Breakthroughs in portable equipment — such as x-ray units, treatment carts, and compressors — have advanced the practice of mobile dentistry and patient interest. However, most mobile dentistry remains relegated to those with special needs: the geriatric, those with physical or mental challenges, the permanently homebound, and others. That’s changing now too.

Prior to COVID-19, people with the means to do so routinely pampered themselves with private manicures, in-home personal trainers for workouts, and other individualized services in their offices or residences. Since the pandemic, with the renewed focus on health, the same people are looking for that same level of personalized, on-premise dental care.

As Tina Rosenberg explained in her New York Times article, “House calls may be making a revival among the wealthy through concierge telemedicine.” 

Business leaders are also realizing the benefits of on-demand, on-site concierge dentistry.  Right now, one of HR’s biggest efforts is to focus on the mental health of employees who are readjusting to life after the pandemic. Increased stress and anxiety led to a rise of bruxism, or teeth grinding. People with depression often neglect oral hygiene. Coping mechanisms also lead to habits that damage oral health, such as sugary foods, alcohol, or tobacco use. When people become embarrassed about their smile, they also withdraw or lose self-esteem, which exacerbates mental health symptoms. A mobile dental pop-up helps HR professionals conquer these challenges for returning and hybrid workers.

Preventative care helps mitigate absenteeism and lost productivity associated with dental emergencies. Mobile dentistry allows a company’s staff to receive the best preventative dental care just feet away from their working areas. For remote and hybrid team members, a pop-up provides a new way of incentivizing workers to head back to the office.

This Is What We Do

If all of this sounds like the stuff of speculative fiction or futuristic prognosticating, it’s very real. In fact, it’s what we do – and have done for years. The modernization of house calls, mobile dentistry, and portable equipment is a cornerstone of the Blende Dental Group, which is home to House Call Dentists. 

Our fully equipped team of dentists, registered dental assistants, and mobile hygienists provide in-home dental evaluations and treatments with portable dental equipment. Based on our assessment, we determine the level of care required and whether treatment can be delivered in the home or under sedation in our office or the hospital. Providing sedation in any of these locations allows us to complete care in as few as one or two visits.

We provide preventative, restorative, and emergency care 24/7/365.  Our teams handle the setup and breakdown of all portable equipment, as well as access to our teledentistry platform, which provides real-time access to video visits with your dentist, treatment plans, and more.

What about mobile dentistry pop ups for businesses? Our affiliate company, Dentists on Demand, has that covered. Dentists on Demand (DOD) has pioneered a solution, powered by its proprietary CUSPID teledentistry portal, that delivers oral care right to a company’s office. Utilizing a conference room or unoccupied space, DOD sets up a portable dental unit to treat employees on site. No missed work hours, no unexpected absenteeism, no reason for employees to ignore dental needs until they become emergencies. 

DOD teams also rely on hospital-grade sterilization techniques that include enhanced PPE and air purifiers with HEPA filters and germicidal UV-C lights.

The world has changed. Patient needs and expectations have changed. And the nature of dental health has changed. We understand that. And no one could have anticipated the radical adjustments we would have to make moving beyond the pandemic, the foundation of our dental practice has ideally positioned us to support the new needs of patients as they forge ahead in their new normal. 

 

November 22, 2022

House calls are firmly ingrained in the fabric of American culture and history. We’ve all heard stories about the country doctor who traveled across hill and dale to care for patients around the local community. Today, many people believe the tradition exists only in nostalgia, period-piece stories, small rural towns, or the memories of our elders. They seem surprised when we tell them we specialize in house calls. In fact, house calls have not only returned, they’ve regained prominence and importance. The modernization of mobile technologies and the evolving needs of society have brought renewed attention to a formerly bygone practice. And for dentistry, house calls represent new access to care for people who would otherwise go without treatment.

The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the House Call

In the early 1930s, house calls represented 40% of doctor-patient meetings. Over the next 20 years, they grew to encompass almost half of all medical consultations. However, the frequency of house calls plummeted to less than one percent by the 1980s. So what happened? As Tina Rosenberg explained in a 2016 New York Times article, “The country began building big hospitals and luxurious doctors’ offices, and doctors acquired sophisticated equipment they couldn’t put in a medical bag. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement systems made home visits untenable. But the house call is now a better idea than ever.”

Traction for reviving house calls took hold again in the 1990s when team home care, including in-home visits, became a small but growing field in health care. The primary patient groups were seniors and people with chronic illnesses. Examining their challenges sheds more light on the renaissance of house calls in the modern era.

For frail seniors, people with special needs, and the homebound, routine care is next to impossible. Going to the doctor or the dentist for preventative treatment is a big undertaking. Relatives must take time off from work to transport their loved ones. Sometimes an ambulette must be hired. Some people can’t physically leave their homes. Still others have conditions that prevent them from tolerating procedures in a medical office. So what happens? They forgo the routine care they need. Then, whether for a health or dental emergency, they land in the hospital.

“But most hospitals are fee-for-service: they benefit from having more patients, not fewer,” Rosenberg pointed out. “Today two-thirds of doctors are employed by hospitals, which buy practices in part to require doctors to send them patients. And that percentage is growing fast.”

During Rosenberg’s research and interviews with medical professionals, she noticed some fascinating trends. Doctors who opted to focus on house calls had more time for work-life balance, made more money by not “buying practices” from hospitals, had better connections and insights from their patients, and were able to treat people who couldn’t access regular care. 

“Time is another advantage,” Rosenberg wrote. “House calls eliminate no-shows. So doctors don’t have to do the double- and triple-booking that can lead to seeing 30 patients per day.”

The issues are particularly more pronounced with dental care. Let’s face it, more people put off going to the dentist than they do their doctor. So imagine what that’s like for homebound seniors or people with special needs. The end result is the same, because oral health problems lead to dire physical problems – so these patients wind up in the emergency room. 

One of the factors that contributed to the demise of the house call was bringing equipment to patients. Well, the technological barriers have been lifted with advances in portable treatment tools, mobile x-ray machines, sterilization equipment, and teledentistry. 

With about two-thirds of our aging population expected to suffer from chronic oral health and medical conditions, they’ll need access to attention early; dentists who make house calls may be the only ones equipped to provide this care. 

Researchers and the Government Support House Calls

On February 26, 2018, the House of Representatives voted 387–13 in favor of the Action for Dental Health Act of 2017. Thematically, this bill is intended to prevent dental disease, divert dental emergencies from high-cost centers (like hospital emergency rooms) to dental offices, and reduce barriers to accessing care. Lines 15–17 of the bill include grant funding to support portable or mobile dental equipment, and this should lead to an expansion of opportunities to deliver and receive care through the use of portable dental equipment. Portable dental equipment includes relatively lightweight and easily movable dental chairs, x-ray units, and portable dental drills.

More recently, Congress passed another bill to help bolster funding for mobile health care. On October 18, 2022, President Biden signed into law S. 958, the “Maximizing Outcomes through Better Investments in Lifesaving Equipment for (MOBILE) Health Care Act,” which allows community health centers to use New Access Point grants to establish mobile health clinics. This was a bipartisan effort championed by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV), Rep. Raul Ruiz, M.D. (D-CA), and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA). The law allows federal funding to be used for mobile outreach clinics. 

As Taylor Heeden wrote for the Chatham News and Record (a paper covering Hudson’s district), “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, community health clinics were only allowed to use federal grants for ‘brick and mortar’ additions to facilities, not for mobile outreach efforts. But during the pandemic, the government lifted those brick-and-mortar restrictions and allowed facilities to use their federal funds to purchase mobile clinic supplies, such as buses, vans, medical equipment and more.”

A Timeless Solution for Current Needs

Over 61 million people in the United States live with special needs, including 7 million children. Yet as we’ve seen, these individuals go without proper oral care given the lack of dentists who have the specialized skills, training, and capabilities to serve these unique patients. It’s important to understand that you and your loved ones can get the care you need through in-home care, facilitated by advances in mobile dentistry, and the evolution of sleep and sedation options. This has been the hallmark of the Blende Dental Group. We have devoted our practice to supporting the under-supported.

Forgoing dental care should never be an acceptable option. The modernization of house calls, mobile dentistry, and portable equipment overcomes these hurdles for seniors and those who care for them. It’s also a cornerstone of the Blende Dental Group, which is home to House Call Dentists. 

Mobile dentistry: Care in the comfort of familiar surroundings

Our fully equipped team of dentists, registered dental assistants, and mobile hygienists provide in-home dental evaluations and treatments with portable dental equipment. Based on our assessment, we determine the level of care required and whether treatment can be delivered in the home or under sedation in our office or the hospital. Providing sedation in any of these locations allows us to complete care in as few as one or two visits.

Caring for Seniors Is Our Specialty

We partner with families, care facilities, and health care providers – including dentists, physicians, care managers, and social workers – to develop a targeted daily dental care plan that complements successful treatment. When homebound seniors experience discomfort, we’re dedicated to making treatment as comfortable as possible. Initial visits include exams, digital x-rays, cleanings, and emergency care as needed to rapidly eliminate infection or pain. Our medical and dental teams meet or exceed hospital grade standards for sterilization safety.

Our multidisciplinary team of nationally recognized dentists, anesthesiologists, and MDs allows us to offer palliative treatment to full-mouth restoration in the safety and comfort of your home. We bring state- of-the-art mobile dental technologies to people who are homebound or have difficulty traveling to a dentist. We provide preventative, restorative, and emergency care 24/7/365.  Our teams handle the setup and breakdown of all portable equipment, as well as access to our teledentistry platform, which provides real-time access to video visits with your dentist, treatment plans, and more.

Of course, as Rosenberg also highlighted in her article “house calls may be making a revival among the wealthy through concierge telemedicine.” At House Call Dentists, our teams have been specializing in concierge in-home care for years. Learn more about how house calls can help you and your family.  

September 21, 2017

There is no magic when it comes to maintaining the health of your gums. The key to a healthy smile is to make sure you are effectively removing the soft plaque and food that consistently accumulates in the mouth before it hardens. This can be achieved through proper brushing and flossing along with a variety of additional adjunctive tools and aids.

If left unremoved, plaque will calcify and turn into calculus or tartar. This hardened state harbors bacteria which initially causes inflammation and irritation of the gums also known as gingivitis. Prolonged presence of calculus will not only cause gingivitis, but will also result in bone loss, periodontitis. In severe forms of acne, the pores become clogged due to the increased activity of your sebaceous glands. These can become inflamed then, which leads to the typical purulent pimples and pustules. With Accutane causing the skin to do away with the clogging matter, I honestly think it may be one of the best modern remedies at http://laserhq.com/acne-accutane-isotretinoin/ for acne problems.

Unfortunately, calculus cannot be removed by homecare and must be professionally debrided by your dental hygienist. Therefore, the goal is to remove plaque and food debris effectively and keep calculus build-up at a minimum in between your professional cleanings. This will help to that your gums stay healthy all year round!

Here are some tips to help you in between your professional cleanings:

• Brush at least two times daily
• Floss at least one time daily
• Brush with an electric toothbrush
• Using a fluoridated antibacterial mouthwash after brushing
• Discuss any additional tools that might be useful for you with your hygienist at your next teeth cleaning appointment

Some signs that you may need to visit your hygienist sooner rather than later include:

• Gums that are red, swollen, or tender
• Gums that bleed when you are flossing or brushing
• Permanent teeth that are becoming loose
• Regular bad breath or an unusual taste in your mouth

When you’re feeling a little unmotivated – especially about that night time routine, remember:

Floss the ones you want to keep!!!

May 7, 2017

BY ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION

Dental care is one of the most challenging aspects of Alzheimer’s and dementia caregiving. Proper oral care is necessary to prevent eating difficulties, digestive problems and infections. As a caregiver, you may have to assist with dental hygiene or take a more hands-on approach. Below are helpful tips from professionals at the Blende Dental Group, which is home of the House Call Dentists, serving patients with special needs, including people with dementia.

Dr. David Blende a graduate of the University of Southern California and has more than 30 years of experience. He is also chief of dentistry at both California Pacific Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente’s San Francisco Medical Center, and on staff at six additional Bay Area hospitals.

Michelle Bernardo has been a Registered Dental Hygienist since 1994 when she graduated from New York University School of Dentistry. She divides her time between the Blende Dental Group San Francisco office and visiting homebound and elderly patients throughout the Bay Area.

Dr. Blende, you were one of the first dentists to perform house calls for patients. How did the idea about House Call Dentists come about?

When I first began my practice in Beverly Hills, I saw virtually no Alzheimer’s patients. When I started doing work in hospitals, I was called out to see home-bound people or patients for whom transport to the dental office was overwhelmingly difficult.

This fit into my background quite well. My father was a physician in a rural town close to the Canadian border and I used to go on house calls with him. Up until 1940, 47% of all interactions between a physician and a patient occurred in the home. And now physicians and medical groups are coming back around to that model.

Why is dental health critical to the health of people with Alzheimer’s?

There’s a huge taboo about being in the mouth of someone past a certain age and certainly in the mouth of our parents or spouse. 95% of all disease in the mouth is preventable. When we see patients who’ve had 35 years of good dentistry, we want to make sure that they hold on to that right to the very end.

A healthy mouth is one of the great privileges of health. Enjoying a meal is a great privilege of health. But because of these taboos about getting into a husband or a wife’s mouth, things go undiscovered. And when a problem is undiscovered, it becomes akin to abandoned because the patient ceases to brush their teeth regularly.

An abandoned mouth ultimately becomes a true nest of infection. The bacteria in the mouth overgrow and seed out into the heart, lungs and kidneys. We know now that one of the major causes of aspiration pneumonia are the bacteria that are harbored in between the teeth in an infected mouth. We also know that a lot of patients with late stage kidney disease have oral bacteria down in the kidneys.

We recommend that caregivers take their partners or parents who have Alzheimer’s to their regular dentist as soon as symptoms appear. Insist that the dentist clean up their mouth so that it can last the 7 to 10 years that are still before them.

Michelle, what are some warning signs that caregivers should watch out for to recognize when there might be a problem?

When a caregiver is taking care of a patient, what they want to look for immediately is an increase of plaque accumulation on the gum line. This is either due to dexterity issues or the person forgets to brush. Ultimately, this plaque accumulation would lead to tooth decay or gum infection. Another sign to watch out for would be if the person stops eating comfortably or you start to notice an unfinished plate at the end of the meal.

Do you have any prevention tips for caregivers?

Sure, as a caretaker you want to make sure you’re brushing the person’s teeth after every meal, ideally, but at least two times a day. Have the person rinse their teeth after snacks or after drinking juices. If the person has lost their ability to rinse, make sure you wipe the inside of their mouth with either a piece of gauze or wet wash cloth to get sugar and food particles off the teeth and cheeks. And then you’ll always want to be pulling the cheeks away from the teeth to see if there is anything broken or if there are any sores.

Dr. Blende, what do you advise the caregivers that you meet in your practice?

When we make house calls, the first thing we do is we ask the caregiver to show us their mouth. We want to know how well caregivers take care of their own mouth. That then becomes another part of the education. If they’re taking good care of their mouth, then we’re advancing down the line.

A great reminder for caregivers is to make sure that the person you are caring for has a good routine. It’s also important for the patient to be on a dental routine with their dentist, so make sure to have their mouth checked every few months. When someone has a toothache, it’s pretty simple to diagnose or if their face is swollen, that’s pretty simple, as well. But probably 85% of the insidious disease and the real infection is very silent and it slowly but perniciously starts to destroy the mouth so you have to get someone to look at it. Sometimes, I know, a client might have a headache because he takes a dose too high. You then should first refer him to a lower daily dose and see if he still has a headache. Other active molecules can also be tried, as they vary in the impact on an individual and may go through the body completely unnoticed when it comes to side effects. And finally, if falls short of his expectations, we have to discuss with a client all the means at our disposal: there are local creams, intracavernous injections and pumps.

Another problem is that as we age into 60’s, 70’s or 80’s, our saliva can diminish. When someone becomes distressed and they’re given anti-anxiety drugs or heart and pain medication, all of those have a side effect of drying out the mouth. And if the saliva dries, the mouth dries up. We like to tell people that saliva is like the tide at the beach. The tide comes up on the beach, picks up the kelp, makes it all wet, takes it into the ocean and puts it back on the beach. If someone, who’s been taking good care of their mouth for many years, begins taking one of the 400 drugs that causes dry mouth, you have a recipe for disaster.

What methods of treatment have you provided to individuals with dementia?

By the time we see an Alzheimer’s patient, they’ve been referred from their caregiver or from another dentist because they’ve fallen beyond the scope of that office’s ability to treat them. We gather the family together and individualize care. Some patients have had good care and some, unfortunately, are dealing with years of deferred maintenance and neglect. For these patients, we either offer palliative care, or if they want to restore the mouth so they can go back to enjoying food, we offer that option.

We treat patients either at our office with a physician anesthesiologist or in a hospital, depending on their health conditions. 70% of what we do is done under general anesthesia because by the time we see these patients, there’s a lot of catch-up treatment.

That’s the important point that I’d like to get across to families – if you can get their mouth stabilized before they go into the later stages of the disease, they’re way ahead of the curve. As the chief of a hospital division, before someone has to have radiation, they tell us to clean their mouth. Before chemotherapy, they ask us to clean up the mouth because they know what’s coming down the line. It should be the same way with Alzheimer’s. We know that there is a natural trajectory to the disease and what we want to do is make sure that oral disease is a non-issue in the late stages.

Helpful information related to this post:

• Learn more about dental care
• Learn more about House Call Dentists
• Visit our caregiver center

December 20, 2012

Sarah Marie is 90 years old and has dementia. Age Song’s memory care unit in San Francisco referred her to the practice. By performing a simple house call to her residence, The Blende Dental Group determined a treatment plan to address urgent dental-medical issues, including periodontal bone loss. Now that the work is done, she will be receiving regular maintenance via house calls.

After an initial house call, The Blende Dental team coordinated with Sarah Marie’s primary care physician and the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) to maximize her safety. They also worked closely and interactively with Sarah’s daughter and her memory care unit to insure that all perspectives were incorporated into her care plan. She was treated successfully under light general anesthesia at CPMC.

Sarah Marie recovered very well from her procedure. The Blende Dental Group made a house call two weeks after her treatment to cement the permanent crowns. Consistent with all house call patients, The Blende Dental Group also made a referral to an essential part of their extended team, a mobile hygienist. This professional, a licensed RDHAP (a Registered Dental Hygienist in Alternative Practice), focuses on serving patients with special needs. Sarah Marie has visits from her RDHAP for maintenance cleanings every 3-4 months.

December 19, 2012

Have you ever postponed or canceled a dental appointment because the thought of sitting in the dentist’s chair made you feel uncomfortable, nervous, or afraid? While sitting in the waiting room, have you ever experienced rapid heartbeat, broke out into a sweat, or even felt physically sick? Take the dental anxiety quiz to determine your level of anxiety. You are not alone.

December 3, 2012

The Blende Dental Group focuses on treating patients with special needs, including  those with chemical, or behavioral addictions.  If you would like schedule an appointment or speak with a Patient Care Coordinator, please contact us. Call our toll free number 1-800-575-3375.

An addiction is defined as a dependence on a substance or a type of behavior that is so strong  that stopping causes severe physical and mental reactions (or withdrawal).

Many addictions affect a person’s oral health. At The Blende Dental Group, we routinely treat patients with addictions ranging from methamphetamine use, popularly shortened to meth (eg. Crystal meth, crank, ecstasy) to bulimia and smoking.

The causes of poor oral health are as varied as the addiction. A person addicted to meth often suffers from rampant decay brought about by a combination of variables including dry mouth (xerostomia), extended periods of poor oral hygiene, frequent intake of high carbohydrate foods and/or beverages, tooth grinding and clenching.

An individual with bulimia may have loss of enamel, esthetic deterioration and tooth decay due to poor nutrition and the corrosive nature of stomach acids. During the therapy of back pain, efficient pain relief is reached in only 1/2 of the patients. To some extent, the reason of this is the lack of knowledge by physicians of the therapeutic strategies recommended in the majority of expert guidelines. Soma is widely used in clinical practice, which is due to its high effectiveness and extensive experience of use in variouspatient categories.

A smoker may suffer from an increased rate of plaque and tartar buildup, loss of bone within the jaw and increased risk of gum disease and oral cancer.

The Blende Dental Group specializes in working with patients who have special needs, including addictions. If you’d like schedule an appointment or speak with a Patient Care Coordinator, please contact us. Call our toll free number 1-800-575-3375.

November 27, 2012

We offer the following emergency treatments:
• Diagnosis & Treatment
• Crowns, Bridges, Veneers
• Extractions
• Infections / Abscesses
• Denture Adjustments
• Root Canals
• Pain Management

Contact Us
To contact us after hours, please call 1.877.HOUSE.07 (877.468.7307)

March 31, 2011

The Blende Dental Group focuses on treating patients with special needs, including those with head and neck cancer. Patients with head and neck cancer are often diagnosed in the later stages of the disease. This is due to a lack of initial symptoms and difficulty visualizing the process in the throat, nasal or oral cavities, even by a dentist.

When cancer is diagnosed and biopsied by a dentist, an oral  surgeon or an ENT surgeon, appropriate imaging will be done (CT scan, MRI, PET scan, etc.) to delineate the primary cancer and collateral lymph nodes. It is very important that head and neck cancer patients undergo a pre-radiation examination by an oral surgeon and a general dentist familiar with this condition prior to the initiation of XRT. This dental team can help prevent many of the extremely detrimental damaging effects of radiation on hard and soft tissue, especially the jaws and salivary glands.

Three types of treatment are considered for head and neck cancer patients: surgical excision, radiation treatment (XRT) chemotherapy, or any combination of these. If the cancer is extensive and/or distant metastases are present, surgical excision may not be the best option, and XRT/chemotherapy may be used as an alternative course of therapy. Radiation therapy that kills cancer cells often also damages collateral healthy cells, like osteoclasts of the jawbone and salivary gland cells. Since there is decreased local immunity (radiation-induced), the possibility of devastating complications is high. Radiation-induced dry mouth (xerostomia) and osteoradionecrosis (ORN) (similar to the osteomyelitis of the jaw) are examples of these complications, which can result in the loss of large amounts of jawbone.

Treatment by the oral surgeon/general dentist team should include: a comprehensive examination; extraction of all non-restorable teeth that will fall within the target zone of the radiation beam; treatment of all other teeth with curettage and scaling; fabrication of temporary or permanent restorations; and custom fluoride trays. These treatments should help to protect the patient from the side effects of radiation treatment and possible complications. The chance of detrimental effects occurring is greatly reduced if dental treatment is complete before radiation therapy.