title: [Changes in dentistry].
abstract: Although collective and individual prophylactic measures have been shown to drastically reduce or totally prevent dental caries and periodontal disease, a recent survey of over a thousand twenty-year olds from all areas in Switzerland revealed an average DMFT value of 14.5, including 8.6 teeth already filled. Alarmingly, more than two thirds of all the proximal fillings examined radiographically were inadequate and therefore sources of marginal irritation. Dentistry in the future must accordingly concentrate on increased primary prevention and, where restorations are necessary, on placing restorations that will not lead to secondary caries and destructive marginal periodontitis. These goals can be most economically achieved through a team approach where the dentist delegates to his (or her) dental hygienist and specially trained chairside assistant the tasks of radiological and clinical diagnosis of caries and of marginal irritants in order to interfere with the progress of periodontal disease. The dentist, in addition, freed from administrative tasks by electronic data processing, will direct the team, and his practice will, in the future, fall into one of two large areas: preventive dentistry and/or pedodontics of curative gnathology.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004245:DMF Index; D003727:Dental Auxiliaries; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000517:prevention & control; D003793:Dental Restoration, Permanent; D006801:Humans; D009910:Oral Hygiene; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010510:Periodontal Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control; D011313:Preventive Dentistry / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D012008:Recurrence; D013557:Switzerland
vernacular_title: Zum Wandel der Zahnheilkunde.