October 13, 2008 | Web Exclusive
Aging Advocacy
A hygienist’s story of working with the elderly and making change happen.
by Pam Cushenan, RDH, MS
As a dental hygienist and dental hygiene educator, I’ve been privileged to provide oral health care and education to tens of thousands of individuals. Like many oral health professionals, this has allowed me the opportunity to focus my energies on promoting the well being of patients, especially our older adult population. My particular methods of achieving these goals are accomplished through my oral health education & training company, as a dental hygiene educator, and through countless legislative efforts.
Hands-On Education
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the older adult population. In 1995, an assisted living home with an Alzheimer’s unit was built next to my dental office. This changed our patient balance, which resulted in a need for me to research special needs care. Many of our new older adult patients presented poor oral hygiene, moderate-severe infection, and multiple restorative needs. Medically compromised conditions, medications, and cognitive impairment levels had to be carefully considered when planning for patient care. For many of these residents, it was apparent that family and professional caregivers were needed to assist in overseeing or providing basic daily oral hygiene and/or assistive oral hygiene devices would be helpful.
For my cognitively impaired patients, I would have the attending family member or Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) accompany the resident and I to the operatory, where I would involve them in the assessment and oral hygiene instruction process. This went on for a couple of years as I learned more about how to work with my older adult patients. In time, I recognized the great need for families and residents everywhere to receive this type of information in a way that would be more effective. This led me to return to the higher education system where I completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees.
My Master of Science Degree concentration is in Training & Development. This helps me to be a more effective educator and develop the tools for various training programs. I replaced the less effective in-service of the past with a full-service kinesthetic learning experience that has received excellent feedback from attendees. I created my company, SOFT Smiles: Senior Oral Focused TrainingTM (www.softsmiles.net), in 2006.
SOFT SmilesTM is born
SOFT SmilesTM has a variety of programs. These include training CNA’s at individual facilities, as well as a Train-the-Trainer program. Our most recent four-day SOFT Smiles Train-the-Trainer event resulted in approximately 140 supervisory staff members being trained. They will train three thousand CNA’s, who provide care for up to sixty-five hundred residents in forty-nine nursing homes.
In addition to caregiver training, a growing number of our functionally independent seniors request presentations of the latest information on oral health products and assistive aids. I also conduct seminars for dental professionals on aging-related topics. The key to improved geriatric oral health care is to share what works to enhance our assessments, treatment, assistive care training techniques and increase patient assessibility to care.
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