A continuing education course, “Catch the Composite Wave,” will be held in 2014 at the Center for Esthetic Excellence in Chicago hosted by Cosmedent. Taught by Dr. Bud Mopper, the course is aimed at adding value to dental practices by instructing how to achieve perfection with free hand bonding. Dr. Mopper will show attendees how to get consistently reliable results in every restorative situation: change the color of a single dark tooth to match existing dentition, learn to contour, characterize and finish final restorations, and learn proven techniques for Class III, IV and V restorations. Dr. Mopper has been lecturing about composites for over 30 years and is one of the early pioneers in direct resin bonding.

Course Objectives:

- Use materials available today to their best advantages. These include microfill, nanofill and microhybrid materials. Find out where each fits into the layering technique.

- Change color of a single dark tooth to match existing dentition with composite veneering thru step-by-step sequencing.

- Learn to contour, characterize, and finish final restorations in order to make them believable.

- Close diastemas. 

- Achieve perfect line angles and perfect embrasures.

- Learn how the subtle application of opaquers can mask metal or unwanted color to create invisible restorations.

- Use tints to augment your restorations or impart translucency.

- Proven techniques for Class III, IV, and V restorations.

- Intersculpt incisal translucency.

- Properly polish restorations to acquire a long lasting, easily maintainable enamel-like luster.

- Accurately diagnose esthetic needs.

- Learn a philosophy of practice and communication that allows the patient to understand and easily accept proposed treatment plans.

To register or to learn more call Erika Heier at the Center for Esthetic Excellence at 800-837-2321 or visit www.cosmedent.com.

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 9, 2013 -- A new WellPoint survey, which examines how Americans (age 45 and older) view dental coverage benefits, reveals that Americans over age 45 understand that good oral care can positively affect their overall heath. However, while 83% of Americans surveyed say they have medical coverage (from either an employer or the government), only half as many are covered by dental insurance. And, as baby boomers plan for retirement, those with dental coverage say they need more information about future costs and changes to their dental plan upon retirement.

This survey also shows that nine out of 10 older Americans (93%) believe good dental care is important to their overall health and that routine dental check-ups can help prevent heart disease and other chronic conditions (90%). This awareness contrasts with the fact that only four in 10 older Americans (41%) say they currently have dental coverage (from an employer, private and/or supplemental). Furthermore, 32% of those without insurance admit to forgoing dental benefits because they have other expenses to worry about.

In addition, older Americans with dental insurance are concerned about maintaining their dental coverage upon retirement, with the majority admitting they are not aware of all their options. More than half (53%) of older Americans who have dental insurance worry about how they will afford coverage upon retirement and 62% say they are concerned about how coverage will change. And, two-thirds of older Americans say they lack information about dental insurance for retirement and they want more information about the dental insurance options available after retirement (67%) and about supplemental dental insurance coverage (65%).

“There has been a positive surge of awareness around personal health and it is assuring that baby boomers understand the link between dental care and overall health,” said Dani Fjelstad, president of WellPoint’s Dental business. “However, this survey uncovered a knowledge gap about dental insurance options that employers and insurers need to address.”

According to the survey, older Americans look at a variety of sources for information about dental insurance. Heath care providers top the list (17%), followed by insurance company websites (14%), human resource departments (13%), family members (12%) and friends (11%). In comparing baby boomers to the previous generation, baby boomers are significantly more interested in information about dental insurance options (70% versus 59%) and supplemental dental coverage (68% versus 58%) for retirement.

Furthermore, older Americans with dental insurance (62%) say they would like a plan that bundles dental and vision insurance together. WellPoint’s affiliated plans offer a variety of supplemental coverage plans, which includes dental and vision services. Packages may includes dental exams, cleanings and comprehensive vision exams, as well as the SilverSneakers® fitness program* (including a fitness center membership), older adult care support resources, a member assistance program with counseling services, and travel assistance for those who encounter a medical emergency while traveling abroad (including medical evacuation to the nearest appropriate treatment facility, bedside visits for a family member or a friend if hospitalized for more than seven days or if in critical condition, and assistance in replacing lost prescription medications or contact lenses)**.

Additional survey results found:

• Older Americans select dental coverage because it is vital to their overall health (58%); is inexpensive compared to paying out-of-pocket dental costs (52%); and protects them in case of dental emergencies (44%).

• As part of their dental coverage, older Americans with dental coverage are most interested in diagnostic and preventative services (77%), minor restorative dental services (67%) and prosthodontics (54%).

• Nearly half of older Americans with dental coverage are interested in coverage for oral surgery (47%), while four in 10 are interested in emergency coverage (44%) and coverage for root canals (42%).

• Six in 10 Americans with dental insurance (61%) report they would pay more for comprehensive dental coverage, while more than a quarter (27%) would pay more for dental insurance if it included benefits such as fitness programs and/or legal or financial counseling services.

* The SilverSneakers Fitness Program provided by Healthways, Inc., an independent company. SilverSneakers® is a registered mark of Healthways, Inc.

**Check the local plan details for the specific offerings available in WellPoint’s Blue states (which includes California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin).

The online survey was conducted using the field services of TNS, a national research agency. The study reached a national sample of 2,500 American adults ages 18 and older, of which 1,563 were over the age of 44. For the purposes of this survey, “older Americans” are defined as Americans who are ages 45 years and above (n=1,563), including Americans 45-64 (described as baby boomers=1,142) and Americans 65 years and above (n=421). The margin of error for the older Americans sample is ±2.5% at the 95% confidence level. This means that if we were to replicate the study, we would expect to get the same results (within 2.5 percentage points) 95 times out of 100.

December 10, 2013 (HealthDay News) -- Tooth loss and bleeding gums might be a sign of declining thinking skills among the middle-aged, a new study contends.

"We were interested to see if people with poor dental health had relatively poorer cognitive function, which is a technical term for how well people do with memory and with managing words and numbers," said study co-author Gary Slade, a professor in the department of dental ecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"What we found was that for every extra tooth that a person had lost or had removed, cognitive function went down a bit," Slade said. "People who had none of their teeth had poorer cognitive function than people who did have teeth, and people with fewer teeth had poorer cognition than those with more."

"The same was true when we looked at patients with severe gum disease," he said.

Slade and his colleagues reported their findings in the December issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.

To explore a potential connection between oral health and mental health, the authors analyzed data gathered between 1996 and 1998 that included tests of memory and thinking skills, as well as tooth and gum examinations, conducted among nearly 6,000 men and women. All the participants were between the ages of 45 and 64.

Roughly 13% of the participants had no natural teeth, the researchers said. Among those with teeth, one-fifth had less than 20 remaining (a typical adult has 32, including wisdom teeth). More than 12% had serious bleeding issues and deep gum pockets.

The researchers found that scores on memory and thinking tests -- including word recall, word fluency and skill with numbers -- were lower by every measure among those with no teeth when compared to those who had teeth.

The researchers also found that having fewer teeth and serious gum bleeding were associated with worse scores on the tests, compared to those with more teeth and better gum health.

Which condition developed first? The answer is murky, the researchers said.

"It could be that poor dental health reflects a poor diet, and that the lack of so-called 'brain foods' rich in antioxidants might then contribute to cognitive decline," Slade said. "It could also be that poor oral health might lead to the avoidance of certain foods, thereby contributing to cognitive decline."

"It could also be that dental disease, especially gum disease, gives rise to inflammation not only in the gums but throughout the circulatory system, ultimately affecting cognition," he said.

"If we want to focus on what might actually be contributing to cognitive decline and how to screen for that, then perhaps [poor] dental health should be thought of as yet another indication of both poor overall health and poor cognition," Slade said. "It's certainly a factor to be aware of."

Catherine Roe, an assistant professor of neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, said the findings were "fascinating."

"Oral health isn't a widely talked about risk factor for cognition issues, and from this study we can only tell there's an association between the two, not that it's causal," Roe said.

"But the idea of a relationship between the two is certainly a very interesting possibility," she said. "It could be that systemic inflammation might have an overall effect on both dental health and cognition, as they discuss in the paper."

"There might be a genetic link between the two diseases, with a certain gene promoting both oral health issues and cognition problems," Roe said. "Or, of course, it could simply be that if you've got cognitive problems you just aren't taking very good care of your teeth."

"The thing to do is to continue to follow these people, who are now in their 50s and 60s, which is actually very early to develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease," she said. "It would be good to see to what extent the people who ... have teeth problems today but are cognitively normal right now go on to develop cognitive issues."

Source: healthfinder.gov

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A new kind of dental profession is slowly taking root in underserved parts of Minnesota where dentists are scarce.

Minnesota has licensed 28 dental therapists over the past two years. They perform many basic procedures that previously only a dentist could do. They work in places where dentists won't, or take the place of dentists unwilling to accept Medicaid's low payments, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

Minnesota and Alaska are the only states with dental therapists, and they can't work in Minnesota without a dentist's supervision. That has made it challenging for some to find work. Many dentists opposed the 2009 legislation that created the profession, and some haven't softened on the need for these mid-level practitioners.

The field's pioneers include Christy Jo Fogarty, 43, of Farmington, who holds the second dental therapist license Minnesota issued. She's also the first person in the state certified as an advanced dental therapist, which gives her some freedom to work independently at mobile clinics in schools, Head Start programs and community centers.

"I can do any kind of fillings —that's on children and adults; white fillings, silver fillings. I can do stainless steel crowns — that's both on children and adults. I can do extractions of baby teeth," she said.

Her patients are primarily low-income children and pregnant women who have no dental insurance or get coverage through Medicaid.

So far, safety-net providers have been some of the profession's biggest supporters.

Fogarty's nonprofit employer, Children's Dental Services in Minneapolis, likely would have been forced to cut back on services if dental therapists hadn't come along, Executive Director Sarah Wovcha said. She pays dental therapists about $45 per hour, compared with an average of $75 for a dentist.

"This really has been a lifesaver for us," she said.

Kaitlin Gebhart, 23, of Elkton, S.D., who will graduate next year from the University of Minnesota's dental therapy program, said she assumes she'll find a job, but that it's a little scary to follow such an uncharted career path.

"Is it going to be successful? Are people going to be accepting of this? There's times when you run in to people that aren't accepting of it and you have to learn how to handle it," she said.

Marshall Shragg, executive director of the Minnesota Board of Dentistry, said he believes acceptance will come.

"I would think that within 10 to 20 years that this will be a profession that we look back on and say, 'Didn't we always have this?' because it will be part of a team that is just exactly what we accept and expect," Shragg said.

Source: mysanantonio.com

Dental infections are common and can be insidious. Infections originating in teeth can spread to other parts of the body and have a great effect on general health. An expert research group consisting of neurosurgeons, dentists, microbiologists, and coroners collected 36 samples of cerebral haemorrhages and made a unique discovery. Half of the specimens contained remains of dental infection bacteria, which could therefore be considered to contribute to the onset of ruptured intracranial aneurysms.

Previous studies have also shown that oral infections increase the risk of premature births, and may affect the risk of cardiovascular disease outbreaks. Even some artificial joint infections have been traced back to dental infections.

Mikko Pyysalo, Specialist Doctor of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases at the Tampere University Hospital in Finland and head of the research team says that people can carry infections that have originated in the mouth for up to 40 years unawares.

At the same time as research is making these bacterial connections clearer, Finland is looking to save on its healthcare expenditures. One option has been to cut back on dental care for adults. Mikko Pyysalo feels that decision-makers must be made aware of the extraordinary importance of good dental health and not see it as a separate or lesser component of overall health care.

Source:Yle

December 4, 2013 - INTELIHEALTH - Bodybuilders who use anabolic steroids are much more likely than other men to have severe gum disease, says a study. The study, done in Buenos Aires, Argentina, included 92 male bodybuilders. Compared with men who did not use steroids, steroid users:

- Were more likely to have inflamed gums.

- Had more than twice the risk of severe gum disease.

- Were five to eight times as likely to be infected with bacteria that are major causes of gum disease.

- Were nearly 15 times as likely to be infected with Candida parapsilosis, a type of yeast that has recently become a source of infection in people with weakened immune systems.

No other studies have been published on the use of anabolic steroids and gum disease. However, steroid use has been linked to many other health problems, such as liver damage, kidney damage, high blood pressure, infertility, mood swings and an increased risk for prostate cancer.

The study appears in the November 13 issue of the journal Clinical and Oral Investigations.

Source: InteliHealth News Service

The ADA patient education brochure Antibiotics and Dental Treatment (W307) can help to clarify who should take antibiotics before dental treatment and who should not.

In dentistry, where the long observed standard has been to prescribe antibiotics for dental patients with orthopedic implants and for those with certain heart conditions (as a precaution to ward off infective endocarditis), it's a better move, in most cases, to bypass antibiotic prophylaxis, experts say. The American Heart Association recommends antibiotic prophylaxis only for patients with the highest risk of developing infective endocarditis, and the ADA and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in a systematic review of the literature found no direct evidence that dental procedures cause orthopedic implant infections.

The six-panel brochure is $39 for a pack of 50. All ADA Catalog patient education products—including the Antibiotics and Dental Treatment brochure (W307)—and personalized products are available at a savings of 15 percent with promo code 13135 through Dec. 31.

Source: ADA News

Sea coral could soon be used more extensively in bone grafting procedures thanks to new research that has refined the material's properties and made it more compatible with natural bone.

By partially converting calcium carbonate―found in the exoskeleton of sea coral―into coralline hydroxyapatite (CHA), the refined material, called coralline hydroxyapatite/calcium carbonate (CHACC), has been shown to 'considerably improve' the outcome of bone grafts in 16 patients.

The results of the small clinical study, which were published November 29, 2013, in IOP Publishing's journal Biomedical Materials, showed that bone healing was observed in each of the patients after 4 months and that the CHACC had fully biodegraded after 2 years.

CHA derived from sea coral has been used for many years as a successful bone graft material; however, its use has been limited to specific bones because it does not fully biodegrade.

The corresponding author of the research Zhidao Xia from Swansea University said: "Our methods have considerably improved the outcome of bone grafts by using the partial conversion technique, in which the biodegradable composition from natural coral is reserved. It works in a very similar way to commercially available CHA for conductive bone regeneration, but the better biodegradation properties are compatible with the host tissue's natural bone turnover process.

"When biomaterials do not biodegrade and remain in skeletal tissue, they may continuously cause problems in the host. In extreme conditions, it is possible that the different mechanical properties of the artificial bone graft may cause a re-fracture or become a source for bacterium growth in infection."

CHACC could become a promising alternative to an autograft, which uses pieces of bone from another part of the patient's body to regrow new bone in the injured area. Besides only having a limited stock, an autograft can cause discomfort, pain and long-term impairment in the area that the bone is taken from.

In their study, the researchers, from the UK and China, harvested sea coral from South China and partially converted the calcium carbonate into CHA to form CHACC.

According to the paper, the CHACC composition, which contains 15% of CHA in a thin layer around the calcium carbonate, has the strong, porous structure that has made CHA commercially successful, but contains significantly improved biodegrading properties to support natural bone healing.

In their study, the researchers constructed CHACC and tested its physical and chemical properties using a number of microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. The CHACC was then mixed with human mesenchymal stem cells and implanted subcutaneously in mice for 10 weeks. The results showed that new bone formation was visible on the surface of the CHACC.

In a preliminary clinical study, 16 patients (11 male and five female) with a range of four different bone defects were surgically implanted with CHACC. Results showed there was clinical bone healing four months after surgery and the majority of the implanted CHACC degraded after 18 to 24 months in each patient.

Bone remodelling can be a complex and slow process by which old bone is continuously replaced by new bone tissue. In the case of fracture healing, the complete remodelling phase can take between three and five years depending on the individual, so a synthetic bone graft must biodegrade within a time window that relates to the natural bone remodelling cycle.

The researchers acknowledge that there is some way to go until the material can match the benefits of an autograft and be used on the several million people worldwide who undergo bone grafting procedures each year.

"Although our study has provided promising results, the CHACC material does not contain a bone organic matrix, living cells and the ability to induce, rather than conduct, new bone formation. Therefore, our future work is to combine controlled growth factor delivery and stem cell technology in order to develop an even better solution for bone graft materials." continued Xia.

A multicenter case control study on periodontal conditions in patients with Marfan syndrome (MFS) concluded that patients with MFS did not reveal a higher prevalence of periodontitis compared to the control group, according to Medscape. However, Marfan patients showed a tendency to more inflammation signs, which can be explained by the crowded teeth. The study is published in BMC Oral Health.

Background: Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a disorder of the connective tissues. Alterations of the elastic fibers may manifest in different tissues especially in the skeletal, cardiovascular and ocular system. Oral manifestations like orthodontic or skeletal anomalies and fragility of the temporomandibular joint have been well described by various authors. However, no data are available regarding a possible periodontal involvement of MFS. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate for the first time if MFS may increase the susceptibility to periodontitis.

Methods: A comprehensive periodontal examination including documentation of probing pocket depth, gingival recession, clinical attachment level, and bleeding on probing was conducted in all patients. In addition, dental conditions were assessed by determining the Index for Decayed, Missing and Filled Teeth (DMFT) and a self-administered questionnaire was filled out by patients. For statistical analysis, the unpaired t-Test was applied (level of significance: p < 0.05). Both groups were matched concerning well known periodontal risk factors like age, gender and smoking habits.

Results: 82 participants, 51 patients with MFS (30 female and 21 male, mean age: 40.20 ± 15.35 years) and 31 sound controls (17 female and 14 male, mean age: 40.29 ± 13.94 years), were examined. All assessed periodontal and dental parameters were not significantly different between groups.

Conclusions: Based on our data, patients with MFS did not reveal a higher prevalence of periodontitis compared to the control group. However, Marfan patients showed a tendency to more inflammation signs, which can be explained by the crowded teeth. Therefore, a regular professional cleaning of the teeth is recommendable (i.e., 6 months intervals) in order to reduce the bacterial biofilm in the oral cavity and thus resulting in a decreased risk of systemic diseases, specifically endocarditis.

In peripheral axonal regeneration, Schwann cells play an integral role, and Schwann cells transplantation has been shown to enhance axonal outgrowth both in vitro and in vivo. However, harvesting autologous Schwann cells may result in defects to the peripheral nerves of the donor. Thus, Prof. Jong-Ho Lee and team from School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Korea have confirmed that periodontal ligament stem cells can differentiate into Schwann-like cells.

Their recent study published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 30, 2013) showed that human periodontal ligament stem cells (1 × 106) were injected into the crush-injured left mental nerve in rats. Simultaneously, autologous Schwann cells (1 × 106) and PBS were also injected as controls. The researchers found that human periodontal ligament stem cells and autologous Schwann cells exhibited similar therapeutic effects.

The findings from this study suggest that transplantation of human periodontal ligament stem cells show a potential value in repair of mental nerve injury.

Source: eurekalert.org