Efficacy of regular professional brushing by a dental nurse for 3 months in nursing home residents-A randomized, controlled clinical trial

Objectives The oral health of nursing home residents is poor for various reasons. Many require help for oral hygiene. Regular professional brushing by a dental nurse should improve oral hygiene. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of regular tooth brushing by a dental nurse on the oral health of nursing home residents. Methods This controlled trial randomized participants (n = 50; mean age 83 +/- 8 years) to brushing by a dental nurse every 2 weeks for 3 months (n = 25; test group) or oral hygiene procedures performed/controlled by nursing home staff (n = 25; control group). Personal, general and oral health, as well as various oral hygiene parameters-plaque index (PI), gingivitis index (GI), papilla bleeding index (PBI), oral hygiene index (OHI) and Volpe-Manhold Index (VMI)-were evaluated at baseline, after initial professional dental cleaning and before last brushing. Results At baseline, oral health was impaired according to investigated indices in both groups. After professional brushing for 3 months, there were improvements in PI, GI and PBI, with significant increases compared with the control group in OHI and VMI (P = 0.017 and P < 0.001, respectively). Among the control group, the number of teeth decreased while the root caries index increased (P = 0.002 between groups). Conclusions Regular professional brushing every 2 weeks by a dental nurse can be recommended for nursing homes residents to improve oral health parameters and to help reduce root caries incidence as a basis to preserve the number of teeth. Such oral hygiene procedures will maintain and improve the oral health of nursing home residents

Efficacy of whitening oral rinses and dentifrices on color stability of bleached teeth

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of whitening toothpastes and mouthrinses on the color stability of teeth bleached with 16% carbamide peroxide (CP) after immersion in coffee solution. Materials and methods: Specimens obtained from bovine incisors were bleached with 16% CP for 14 days. After bleaching, the specimens were stained in coffee solution for 24 h and randomly divided into eight groups according to the following products (n = 10): distilled water (control group, DW), Scope White mouthrinse (SW), Crest 3D White mouthrinse (CWR), Crest 3D White toothpaste (CWT), Crest 3D White toothpaste and Crest 3D White mouthrinse (CWT + CWR), Listerine Whitening toothpaste (LWT), Listerine Whitening mouthrinse (LWR), and Listerine Whitening mouthrinse and Listerine Whitening toothpaste (LWR + LWT). Color measurements were conducted using a spectrophotometer. The data were assessed by analysis of variance for repeated measures and Tukey’s multiple comparison test (p  3.46). The whitening effect of CWR on teeth stained after bleaching was significantly greater than that in the other groups (p  0.05). The combination of mouthrinse and toothpaste did not increase the degree of tooth whitening. Conclusion: Whitening mouthrinse and toothpaste had similar effects on the control group in terms of whitening of teeth stained after bleaching. Nevertheless, Crest 3D White mouthrinse produced the greatest recovery whitening effect among all the products tested