Oral Health Assessment
Below is an outline of part of the process we take to determine the oral health of your pet
and the dental protocol for the best care for the pet
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When assessing your pet’s Dental Health. We preform multiple levels of assessment before each phase this is a key component of the overall treatment.
Planning, Implementation and Evaluation phases.
To start, your vet will gather and record medical history, dental history, recent surgeries, medical conditions. Your vet will also examine your pets mouth checking for obvious dental disease that would exclude the pet from this procedure at this time. If your vet determines that your pet is candidate for the procedure an appointment date will be set.
This next phase begins with your dental tech observing your pet’s body language, personality and response to unfamiliar surroundings when entering the room.
Personality
- Your dental tech will recheck the mouth to confirm that this is the correct procedure at this time.
- We want the space around us to remain silent as possible.
- We wait until their mind leaves and excited state and begins to enter a state of calm.
- We sit quietly and gently begin stroking the body. This helps us to see how the pet express nervousness, excitement or calmness while assessing their situation
- Is the pet sound sensitive?
- Do they have a conditioned response?
- Are they more reactive on one side of the body than the other?
- Does the pet show signs of dementia or pain?
- If they try to bite. What type of biter are they? Fear biter, contract biter, aggressive biter, dementia biter or pain biter
- What about growling? Is the pet just protesting and highly annoyed with the whole situation? Or is it a warning?
Evaluation of the pet’s oral health?
- Check orientation of the teeth and structure
- Plaque, calculus and overall health of the soft tissue are determined visually.
- Is the condition localized, active or unstable?
- How active is the biofilm?
- Pocket depths
- Is there tooth sensitivity
- Nutritional assessments are also part of potential risk of gum disease
Diagnoses:
After gathering all the information in the assessment phases, we now have enough information to determine the level of care that is needed for this appointment.