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An alternate technique of care using silver fluoride followed by stannous fluoride in the management of root caries in aged care
Author(s) -
Deutsch Alan
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
special care in dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.328
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1754-4505
pISSN - 0275-1879
DOI - 10.1111/scd.12153
Subject(s) - medicine , dentistry , dementia , fluoride , root caries , dental care , polypharmacy , intensive care medicine , inorganic chemistry , chemistry , disease
An alternate technique of care to prevent, arrest and manage root caries using aqueous silver fluoride followed by stannous fluoride (AgF+SnF 2 ) in aged care is demonstrated by three case studies. With increasing age, the inability to maintain ones own oral care from dementia, illness or frailty and polypharmacy induced salivary gland hypofunction will result in dental caries becoming a progessively greater burden for the elderly. Future generations of elders will live longer and need to maintain many more teeth longer than earlier generations. Both silver diamine fluoride (SDF)and AgF+SnF 2 arrest and prevent caries and are easy to use in residential aged care facilities. Clinical differences between SDF and AgF+SnF 2 are discussed. However, in aged care, AgF+SnF 2 may offer advantages over SDF. AgF+SnF 2 used to arrest and prevent caries in children can be modified to provide effective but minimally invasive care for an ageing and frail population. These techniques are rapid, inexpensive and nonthreatening suited to treat frail elders, dementia patients exhibiting challenging behaviours and patients with multiple rapidly progressing decay. Silver fluoride, applied before placing glass‐ionomer cement (GIC) restorations is an important adjunct to the atraumatic restorative technique and may retard caries reactivation more than GIC used alone.