Dental care appointments from the comfort of your own home

This practice, like many others, is due to the coronavirus pandemic. Back in April–May 2020, there was a risk that, due to clinic closures, young children would miss out on dental examinations. ‘We thought, at the time, that something had to be done. Otherwise, we would not have managed to handle the high demand at once’, reveals dental hygienist Anna-Mari Kyläkallio. Anna-Mari has been conducting remote appointments from the start.

Remote appointments are perfect when there is no need to examine your oral cavity. Instead, the central elements of the appointment are discussions and counselling. Remote appointments are conducted via Teams, already a familiar tool for many, and the contents correspond to a regular appointment at the clinic.

At appointments with families expecting their first child, we raise awareness about dental care and discuss topics with the parents, such as the family’s eating habits and methods to take good care of the parents’ own and their child’s dental hygiene.

At appointments for children, it is important to show adults how to check their child’s mouth. ‘It is a good habit to check for remains of dental plaque under the upper lip, a place where tooth decay frequently kicks in first for young children. Additionally, you need to learn how to brush every single surface of every tooth’, Anna-Mari explains. ‘I sometimes encounter quite some beautiful teeth on video calls, but it is never entirely possible to inspect every single detail on video.’ On video, Anna-Mari shows her patients several tools, such as an electric toothbrush, appropriate toothpaste and xylitol pastilles. These items help her offer counselling and illustrate things in a concrete manner.

At appointments, we also review possible situations when to contact your dental clinic. Such situations could be, for instance, an injury or colour changes in your teeth. ‘Parents often understand to book an appointment when they are concerned about the child’s teeth.’

At the moment, there are remote appointments approximately four days a week in Espoo. Appointment schedules are filling up, and there are even more clients waiting. Our goal is to increase the number of appointments available and expand the service to the entire Western Uusimaa, provided that we are able to coach more staff to offer remote appointments.

From the point of view of a dental care professional, remote appointments bring variety and new possibilities to your working days. If professionals have, say, problems with their wrist or elbow or find themselves in a troublesome family situation hampering the work at the dental clinic, remote appointments could have a stabilising effect.

‘At remote appointments, the dental hygienist needs to discuss various topics with the family. You should not take yes or no for an answer but dive deeper into how the family is doing and what kind of worries they have’, Anna-Mari explains.

Mouth-check Monday is the day when you need to have a good look inside your child’s mouth; let your child lie in bed, while you operate a torch. If you acknowledge this weekly event in a playful way during a couple of weeks, you might even on dark November Mondays remember to look inside your child's mouth. The underlying aim is to guide adults to learn about their child’s mouth and what actually belongs there in different stages of life. This way, children come to terms with the fact that their parents look inside children’s mouths, which leads to smoother appointments at the dental clinic in the future.