Oral Health Therapist Program a first for IDEM Singapore 2014

IDEM Singapore 2014 Oral Health Therapist Program has been specially designed to fully engage Dental Hygienists and Oral Health Therapists over 2 days of Scientific Lectures and Workshops. A wide range of interesting and inspiring speakers have been hand-picked to cover a comprehensive range of subjects TO serve as a useful update for the dental team. Registration entitles dental hygienists and therapists to attend all scientific lectures at the IDEM Singapore conference.

Day 2 Saturday April 5 - 9:00am - 10:30am

Dental Anomalies in Children: When should you intervene?

Presenter: Betty Mok, Singapore

Dental anomalies may be seen in both the primary and permanent dentition. In this lecture, the speaker aims to help guide the audience through the identification and management of some of the more common anomalies affecting the teeth of the child patients.

11:00am - 12:30pm

Best Practices in Caries Management

Presenter: Seow Liang Lin, Malaysia

Many dentists, armed with the knowledge that caries is an initially reversible, chronic disease with multi-factorial aetiology no longer take a narrow surgical approach as a one-off interventive treatment. Restorative treatment of the disease does not 'cure' caries, in fact, individuals are susceptible to this disease throughout their life time. Risks for developing caries includes biological, environmental, behavioural, and lifestyle-related factors such as high numbers of cariogenic bacteria, inadequate salivary flow and buffering capacity, insufficient fluoride exposure and poor oral hygiene. The approach to primary prevention should be based on assessment of common risk factors. Secondary prevention and treatment should focus on management of the caries over time in an individualized manner, with a minimally invasive, tissue-preserving approach. This lecture aims to outline the current philosophy in caries detection and assessment and recommended practices in caries management.

2:30pm - 4:00pm

Effective Communication: Preventing Pitfalls, Complaints and Legal Suits

Vijayan Loganathan, Singapore

Communication is a process of connecting and for this to be effective, the recipient must understand, assimilate and respond accordingly. When there is a failure in any link of this process, it can lead to disagreements, arguments, ill feelings, even law suits. Every moment of our lives is an act of communication and we need to pay attention to this process. Communication is a vital component of all relationship and certainly with our patients as well. Many complaints arise from miscommunication. Can we prevent it? Most certainly! This presentation will highlight the various modes of communication and what can be done to prevent misunderstandings resulting from a lack of effective communication.

4:30pm - 6:00pm

Best Practices for Non-surgical Periodontal Treatment

Presenter: Soon Lay Yong, Singapore

Non-surgical periodontal treatment (NSPT) is the crucial initial step to achieving periodontal health by eliminating disease and returning the periodontium to a healthy state. One of the primary goals of NSPT is to control bacterial challenge to patient via the removal of bacterial products and calculus deposits performed by oral health therapists. Non-surgical instrumentation stands out as the most important among all the components of NSPT. It aims to cease the progress of periodontal diseases and induce positive changes in subgingival bacterial flora. Non-surgical instrumentation also reduces inflammation and promotes gingival tissue healing by stopping the loss of attachment in the periodontal pocket, allowing the clinical attachment level to remain stable or improve, eliminating bleeding and overall improving the integrity of tissue attachment.

Day 3 Sunday April 6 - 9:00am - 10:30am

Role of OHT in the management of Orthodontic patients: Patient referral and Preventive Maintenance

Presenter: Kelvin Koh, Singapore

Early orthodontic problems are essentially related to space issues (crowding, diastema, missing teeth, maintaining space, regaining space, eruption anomalies (ectopic eruptions and failure of eruptions), vertical problems (open bite and deep bite), crossbite (anterior and posterior) and growth patterns (Class II or Class III). Oral Health Therapists have an important role to play in identifying these problems and the ongoing management of the patient's dentition during and after orthodontic treatment, greatly improving treatment efficiency and patient care.

2:00pm - 4:00pm

DPL Workshop: Mastering Difficult Interactions

Lawrence Wong, Singapore Mun Loke Wong, Singapore

This is a skills development workshop that is very practical. It is designed to give dental professionals competence in handling difficult patient interactions. The workshop explores the causes of difficult interactions; our natural automatic reactions to difficult interactions; the specific choices faced when managing difficult interactions; and skills for effectively handling difficult interactions.

For more information and to register, visit www.idem-singapore.com.