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The Many Benefits of Good Oral Hygiene
It’s true that good oral hygiene helps fight bad breath, but did you know that there is more to it than just that? Keeping your mouth healthy helps keep your body healthy, too. Hear from a speech-language pathologist from UM Charles Regional Medical Center why oral care is so important and what you need to do to keep your mouth healthy.
Featured Speaker:
Kelly Crabtree, MA, CCC-SLP
Kelly Crabtree, MA, CCC-SLP, is a Speech-Language Pathologist at UM Charles Regional Medical Center. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2018 with her Master’s Degree in Speech-Language Pathology. She completed her clinical fellowship at a skilled nursing facility prior to beginning work at CRMC in 2019. Kelly is passionate about swallowing disorders and adult language disorders. She believes in building relationships with patients and their family while developing plans of care specific for each patient’s goals. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family, quilting and exploring with her toddler. Transcription:
The Many Benefits of Good Oral Hygiene
Cheryl Martin (Host): Welcome to live greater a health and wellness podcast brought to you by the university of Maryland medical system. We put knowledge and care within reach. So you have everything you need to live your life to the fullest, this podcast, to sponsored by the university of Maryland rehab network. I'm Cheryl Martin, while it's true that.
Oral hygiene helps fight bad breath. Did you know that there's much more to it? For instance, keeping your mouth healthy helps keep your body healthy. Kelly Crabtree is with me to discuss why oral care is so important and what you need to do to keep your mouth healthy. Kelly is a speech language pathologist at, um, Charles regional medical center.
So glad to have you on Kelly.
Kelly Crabtree: Thank you so much for having me.
Cheryl Martin (Host): So what's considered good oral hygiene.
Kelly Crabtree: Good oral hygiene is when you brush your teeth, your gums and your tongue with a toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste, at least two times a day. And when brushing your teeth, you wanna brush in a circular motion for at least two minutes, making sure you brush all sides of your teeth. You also wanna floss in between each of your teeth.
And for patients who are sick, we actually recommend brushing three to four times a day, especially after meals.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Wow. How many of us do this? Kelly?
Kelly Crabtree: I think people maybe don't put as much stock into it and think it might not be worth that extra time. At least maybe not the second time in the day. I think most people probably do it at least once a day, but that second time of day will really make a difference.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Well, I'm glad you're on so you can tell us why is good oral hygiene so important following the regimen that you just mentioned?
Kelly Crabtree: So good oral hygiene might not seem like such a big deal. Sure. It helps us not have such bad breath and it might brighten our smile, but it's really important for our overall health. For example, good oral care can prevent decaying teeth and gum disease, but the benefits of good oral care extend far beyond just inside our mouths.
Good oral care is linked to preventing infection and disease throughout our body.
Cheryl Martin (Host): wow. So, is it necessary to do oral hygiene? If you don't have any.
Kelly Crabtree: That's actually a great question. So you might think, I don't need to brush my teeth if I'm missing most or all of my teeth. But even people who don't have any teeth should still be doing good oral care twice a day. And that includes using a toothbrush and toothpaste and brushing your gums, your tongue, the roof of your mouth.
That bad bacteria that grows in our mouth. Doesn't just grow on our teeth or in between our teeth, but it grows on all of those surfaces. So brushing your teeth or brushing your gums, if you don't have teeth is really important. And then a lot of our listeners might have dentures and that's kind of a little bit different.
They wanna remove their dentures twice a day, soak them in water with a denture solution. And then brush their gums, their tongue in the roof of their mouth, and then they wanna brush their dentures. But the trick is a lot of dentures. You don't wanna use toothpaste on. You just wanna use a soft bristle toothbrush with warm water because toothpaste can damage some dentures.
Cheryl Martin (Host): So that's something that the person needs to ask the dentist.
Kelly Crabtree: Yes.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Now you've talked about why good oral hygiene is so important. Give some examples of how bad oral hygiene can affect us.
Kelly Crabtree: So bad oral care can lead to an imbalance of the bacteria that lives within our mouths. And this can snowball into much more serious health issues. So when there's too much of the bad bacteria in our mouths, it can travel to other parts of our body, either via the bloodstream or our saliva. So for example, bacteria can enter the bloodstream along the gumline or any other areas in our mouth or throat that might have open scratches or sores.
And then it can travel via the bloodstream to other organs like our heart and these organs. Aren't all built to handle the bacteria. That's in our mouth. So, for example, if it gets to your heart, it can cause an infection like endocarditis, which is an infection of the inner lining of the heart chambers and the valves.
And then this infection can lead to much more serious complications.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Wow. I don't think a lot of us realize why good oral hygiene is so important. I'm glad we are having this conversation because it seems like the mouth and your teeth, they are really the gateway to much more serious problems.
Kelly Crabtree: And of course we all wanna have a nice smile and we don't want our breath to smell bad, but really none of us wanna get these infections that can lead to hospitalizations and increased medical costs and they can make people really sick. So it's a pretty big deal.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Now you mentioned saliva delve more into that in terms of why saliva is so important.
Kelly Crabtree: So saliva actually has quite a few jobs and a lot of them, we might not even think of when we think of our saliva. So first of all, saliva is. Beginning process of digestion. So when you're chewing, saliva is mixing with the food you're chewing to help break it down. And it also moistens the food that you're eating so that it can travel from your mouth to your stomach a little bit more easily.
And saliva's also really important for spreading those chemicals in our food, along our tongues. So they reach the different taste buds. And this is what helps us taste the different flavors of what we're eating and drinking, which I don't know about everyone else. But is. Something I really enjoy.
So that's an important role, but saliva also really plays a big role in oral hygiene. So when you have a healthy amount of saliva, the tissue in your mouth is well hydrated, and this helps keep a balance of good bacteria and bad bacteria. But if your mouth is too dry or if you have too much saliva that causes that bad bacteria to overgrow Saliva also helps protect your teeth from decay by neutralizing the acid or the pH levels that would break down your enamel.
Cheryl Martin (Host): So, Kelly, is there anything we can do? You mentioned too much or not enough, or. Can a person do anything to make sure they have the proper amount of saliva.
Kelly Crabtree: So sometimes people might have. You would call a dry mouth. This can be the result of medications they're taking or medical conditions they have. If they've had head and neck cancer, and they've had radiation that a lot of times will cause dry mouth. So there's different mouth washes and sprays like bioTE that can help increase the.
Saliva production. And then if someone has too much saliva there's medications that can reduce how much saliva you have, they have patches that you can put on the back behind your ears that kind of dry up your saliva. But there's also medications that your doctor can prescribe if they think it's appropriate to lessen the saliva.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Now why are speech, language pathologists like you,
such advocates for good oral care.
Kelly Crabtree: So as a speech language pathologist, I spend a lot of time working with patients in the hospital who are having trouble swallowing. I know that's not consistent with the name, speech language path. But it's a large portion of what we do, especially those of us working in the medical field. So when someone has trouble swallowing, whether it be their saliva, food or liquid, they're not able to protect their airway when they swallow.
And this can lead to food or liquid or saliva going down the wrong way into their airway, which eventually works its way into their. And this is called aspiration. Even healthy adults like you or I, we aspirate every once in a while. I'm sure you can think of a time. Something might have gone down the wrong way.
And that happens and that's fine, but if someone's aspir frequently or in large amounts, it's gonna start to turn into a little bit of a bigger issue because that bad oral bacteria that we talked about earlier is latching onto your saliva or the food or liquid you're eating and drinking. And if you're aspirating that bad bacteria is getting into your lungs.
Your lungs are not built like your stomach, your stomach is built to handle that bacteria, but your lungs, the tissue that they're made of is not meant for that bacteria and that can lead to an aspiration ammonia, and that will cause trouble with breathing and it can make people septic. So that's a huge issue that we see in the populations we work with.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Hmm, Kelly. Is there anything else you'd like to add or tell us about oral care and the benefits of great oral.
Kelly Crabtree: I just wanna remind all of our listeners not to overlook the simple act of doing good oral care for just a few minutes every day, because it can really save your.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Well, you have definitely given us some powerful reasons as to why we need to practice. Good oral hygiene and not just brush our teeth once a day. So that was Kelly Crabtree, a speech language pathologist at, um, M Charles regional medical center. And again, thanks for sharing those great benefits of good oral hygiene.
Kelly Crabtree: you so much for having me.
Cheryl Martin (Host): This episode of live greater is sponsored by the university of Maryland rehabilitation network. Offering a full range of physical rehabilitation services. The, um, rehab network brings together a committed team of experts from across Maryland to help patients recover from illness or injury, such as stroke.
Joint replacement or traumatic injury, the university of Maryland rehabilitation network, bringing world class comprehensive rehabilitation services directly to your neighborhood. You can find more shows just like this one at U mms.org/podcast. That's yous.org/podcast. Thank you for listening to live. A health and wellness podcast brought to you by the university of Maryland medical system.
We look forward to you joining us again.
The Many Benefits of Good Oral Hygiene
Cheryl Martin (Host): Welcome to live greater a health and wellness podcast brought to you by the university of Maryland medical system. We put knowledge and care within reach. So you have everything you need to live your life to the fullest, this podcast, to sponsored by the university of Maryland rehab network. I'm Cheryl Martin, while it's true that.
Oral hygiene helps fight bad breath. Did you know that there's much more to it? For instance, keeping your mouth healthy helps keep your body healthy. Kelly Crabtree is with me to discuss why oral care is so important and what you need to do to keep your mouth healthy. Kelly is a speech language pathologist at, um, Charles regional medical center.
So glad to have you on Kelly.
Kelly Crabtree: Thank you so much for having me.
Cheryl Martin (Host): So what's considered good oral hygiene.
Kelly Crabtree: Good oral hygiene is when you brush your teeth, your gums and your tongue with a toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste, at least two times a day. And when brushing your teeth, you wanna brush in a circular motion for at least two minutes, making sure you brush all sides of your teeth. You also wanna floss in between each of your teeth.
And for patients who are sick, we actually recommend brushing three to four times a day, especially after meals.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Wow. How many of us do this? Kelly?
Kelly Crabtree: I think people maybe don't put as much stock into it and think it might not be worth that extra time. At least maybe not the second time in the day. I think most people probably do it at least once a day, but that second time of day will really make a difference.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Well, I'm glad you're on so you can tell us why is good oral hygiene so important following the regimen that you just mentioned?
Kelly Crabtree: So good oral hygiene might not seem like such a big deal. Sure. It helps us not have such bad breath and it might brighten our smile, but it's really important for our overall health. For example, good oral care can prevent decaying teeth and gum disease, but the benefits of good oral care extend far beyond just inside our mouths.
Good oral care is linked to preventing infection and disease throughout our body.
Cheryl Martin (Host): wow. So, is it necessary to do oral hygiene? If you don't have any.
Kelly Crabtree: That's actually a great question. So you might think, I don't need to brush my teeth if I'm missing most or all of my teeth. But even people who don't have any teeth should still be doing good oral care twice a day. And that includes using a toothbrush and toothpaste and brushing your gums, your tongue, the roof of your mouth.
That bad bacteria that grows in our mouth. Doesn't just grow on our teeth or in between our teeth, but it grows on all of those surfaces. So brushing your teeth or brushing your gums, if you don't have teeth is really important. And then a lot of our listeners might have dentures and that's kind of a little bit different.
They wanna remove their dentures twice a day, soak them in water with a denture solution. And then brush their gums, their tongue in the roof of their mouth, and then they wanna brush their dentures. But the trick is a lot of dentures. You don't wanna use toothpaste on. You just wanna use a soft bristle toothbrush with warm water because toothpaste can damage some dentures.
Cheryl Martin (Host): So that's something that the person needs to ask the dentist.
Kelly Crabtree: Yes.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Now you've talked about why good oral hygiene is so important. Give some examples of how bad oral hygiene can affect us.
Kelly Crabtree: So bad oral care can lead to an imbalance of the bacteria that lives within our mouths. And this can snowball into much more serious health issues. So when there's too much of the bad bacteria in our mouths, it can travel to other parts of our body, either via the bloodstream or our saliva. So for example, bacteria can enter the bloodstream along the gumline or any other areas in our mouth or throat that might have open scratches or sores.
And then it can travel via the bloodstream to other organs like our heart and these organs. Aren't all built to handle the bacteria. That's in our mouth. So, for example, if it gets to your heart, it can cause an infection like endocarditis, which is an infection of the inner lining of the heart chambers and the valves.
And then this infection can lead to much more serious complications.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Wow. I don't think a lot of us realize why good oral hygiene is so important. I'm glad we are having this conversation because it seems like the mouth and your teeth, they are really the gateway to much more serious problems.
Kelly Crabtree: And of course we all wanna have a nice smile and we don't want our breath to smell bad, but really none of us wanna get these infections that can lead to hospitalizations and increased medical costs and they can make people really sick. So it's a pretty big deal.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Now you mentioned saliva delve more into that in terms of why saliva is so important.
Kelly Crabtree: So saliva actually has quite a few jobs and a lot of them, we might not even think of when we think of our saliva. So first of all, saliva is. Beginning process of digestion. So when you're chewing, saliva is mixing with the food you're chewing to help break it down. And it also moistens the food that you're eating so that it can travel from your mouth to your stomach a little bit more easily.
And saliva's also really important for spreading those chemicals in our food, along our tongues. So they reach the different taste buds. And this is what helps us taste the different flavors of what we're eating and drinking, which I don't know about everyone else. But is. Something I really enjoy.
So that's an important role, but saliva also really plays a big role in oral hygiene. So when you have a healthy amount of saliva, the tissue in your mouth is well hydrated, and this helps keep a balance of good bacteria and bad bacteria. But if your mouth is too dry or if you have too much saliva that causes that bad bacteria to overgrow Saliva also helps protect your teeth from decay by neutralizing the acid or the pH levels that would break down your enamel.
Cheryl Martin (Host): So, Kelly, is there anything we can do? You mentioned too much or not enough, or. Can a person do anything to make sure they have the proper amount of saliva.
Kelly Crabtree: So sometimes people might have. You would call a dry mouth. This can be the result of medications they're taking or medical conditions they have. If they've had head and neck cancer, and they've had radiation that a lot of times will cause dry mouth. So there's different mouth washes and sprays like bioTE that can help increase the.
Saliva production. And then if someone has too much saliva there's medications that can reduce how much saliva you have, they have patches that you can put on the back behind your ears that kind of dry up your saliva. But there's also medications that your doctor can prescribe if they think it's appropriate to lessen the saliva.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Now why are speech, language pathologists like you,
such advocates for good oral care.
Kelly Crabtree: So as a speech language pathologist, I spend a lot of time working with patients in the hospital who are having trouble swallowing. I know that's not consistent with the name, speech language path. But it's a large portion of what we do, especially those of us working in the medical field. So when someone has trouble swallowing, whether it be their saliva, food or liquid, they're not able to protect their airway when they swallow.
And this can lead to food or liquid or saliva going down the wrong way into their airway, which eventually works its way into their. And this is called aspiration. Even healthy adults like you or I, we aspirate every once in a while. I'm sure you can think of a time. Something might have gone down the wrong way.
And that happens and that's fine, but if someone's aspir frequently or in large amounts, it's gonna start to turn into a little bit of a bigger issue because that bad oral bacteria that we talked about earlier is latching onto your saliva or the food or liquid you're eating and drinking. And if you're aspirating that bad bacteria is getting into your lungs.
Your lungs are not built like your stomach, your stomach is built to handle that bacteria, but your lungs, the tissue that they're made of is not meant for that bacteria and that can lead to an aspiration ammonia, and that will cause trouble with breathing and it can make people septic. So that's a huge issue that we see in the populations we work with.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Hmm, Kelly. Is there anything else you'd like to add or tell us about oral care and the benefits of great oral.
Kelly Crabtree: I just wanna remind all of our listeners not to overlook the simple act of doing good oral care for just a few minutes every day, because it can really save your.
Cheryl Martin (Host): Well, you have definitely given us some powerful reasons as to why we need to practice. Good oral hygiene and not just brush our teeth once a day. So that was Kelly Crabtree, a speech language pathologist at, um, M Charles regional medical center. And again, thanks for sharing those great benefits of good oral hygiene.
Kelly Crabtree: you so much for having me.
Cheryl Martin (Host): This episode of live greater is sponsored by the university of Maryland rehabilitation network. Offering a full range of physical rehabilitation services. The, um, rehab network brings together a committed team of experts from across Maryland to help patients recover from illness or injury, such as stroke.
Joint replacement or traumatic injury, the university of Maryland rehabilitation network, bringing world class comprehensive rehabilitation services directly to your neighborhood. You can find more shows just like this one at U mms.org/podcast. That's yous.org/podcast. Thank you for listening to live. A health and wellness podcast brought to you by the university of Maryland medical system.
We look forward to you joining us again.