Reference/Features

Why interdental cleaning is still vital

Interdental cleaning has been in the news recently, and not all of it made for sparkling reading. Karen Coates, oral health advisor at the British Dental Health Foundation, discusses the importance of reminding patients about a key aspect of oral hygiene maintenance

I wonder how many of our patients read the MailOnline headline in November, ‘Is flossing your teeth a waste of time’? Dentists nag us about it and insist it prevents heart disease. However, an expert (Elkins, 2012) now says they’ve got it all wrong. Patients heaved a sigh of relief, thinking their trips to the surgery were not going to involve the usual ‘nagging’ from the dentist, hygienist, oral health educator or dental nurse about interdental cleaning?

How wrong they are. I know these kind of headlines ‘sell’ papers but if you read into the article, many more experts extol the virtues of interdental cleaning, if it is done correctly.

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