In the USA, a country with 200 years of history, a regular prophylactic and hygiene of the oral cavity has been made for over 30 years. We all know what the Hollywood smile is.

Some facts::

– the average American byes 18m floss a year (you should use about 110m per year);

– the Americans spend 1.8 million dollars per year on toothpaste;

– the Americans spend 775 million dollars per year on toothbrushes;

– the Americans spend 50 million dollars every year for dental care and 100 million dollars for hair care;

– 300 million dollars are being spend on lottery tickets;

– 78% of all Americans have at least one cavity by the age of 17;

– 74% of all Americans have some periodontal disease;

– 45 to 70 seconds is the average time most people spend on brushing their teeth (you should be doing that for at least 3 minutes);

Oral Hygiene

Oral hygiene is an essential part of the prophylactic measures, whose main purpose is to preserve the tissues and organs in the oral cavity. Clean teeth are significant for your charm and beauty. However, their most important function is to prepare the food for its full absorption of the body. Therefore, you should pay high attention to your teeth and try to preserve them as long as possible, which is also oral prophylactic’s biggest problem nowadays.

Key elements of the oral prophylaxis are: food and fluoride prophylaxis, oral hygiene and active treatment of the dental diseases at their very beginning.

The tasks of oral hygiene:

1. Removal of calculus (tartar)/plaque, because they are causative factors of the main dental diseases;

2. Improvement of the structure of the hard dental tissues, of the oral mucous membrane and the holding tissue complex and their resistance to the harmful effects of external factors;

3. Satisfaction of the aesthetic and psycho-emotional needs of the patient.

These tasks can be easily achieved if you maintain high oral hygiene. All organs and tissues inside the oral cavity are influenced by the oral hygiene: the hard tissues /enamel, cement/, the oral mucous membrane and gums and also their natural environment – the saliva. There is a great interest in plaque. Its origin, contents, structure, development, activity and influence on the teeth as a virulent factor of caries and periodontal diseases has been studied over the past years. Another reason for such problems is the calculus (tartar). Its removal is a vital part of the oral hygiene and prophylaxis.

Maintenance of the oral cavity :

Plaque is a sticky, almost invisible film that forms on the surface of teeth. It is a growing colony of living bacteria, food debris and saliva. Simply washing your mouth will not be sufficient to remove the plaque. The most effective and harmless way of removing it is to brush your teeth regularly with a toothbrush and toothpaste.

The toothbrush is an oral hygiene instrument used to clean the teeth and gums that consists of a head of tightly clustered bristles mounted on a handle, which facilitates the cleansing of hard-to-reach areas of the mouth. Toothbrushes are available with different bristle textures, sizes and forms. A careful selection of the toothbrush according to the age and the condition of the oral cavity is of high importance. Most dentists recommend using a toothbrush labelled “soft”, since hard bristled toothbrushes can damage tooth enamel and irritate the gums. Toothbrushes have usually been made from synthetic fibers since they were developed, although animal bristles are still used sometimes. However, they are not efficient for the purposes of oral hygiene, because they tend to “miss” some of the plaque or irritate the soft tissues in the mouth.

Source: Global Internet Network