The importance of good oral hygiene – not only for dental health, but for your overall wellbeing

cannot be overemphasized.

Brushing your teeth daily is essential in keeping your teeth and gums in good condition so that you can eat, drink and speak without any discomfort. Poor oral health can impact on other health issues such as diabetes and heart disease.

To ensure a healthy smile, an extensive range of toothbrushes is currently available, including manual

and electric varieties. While the jury is out on whether or not electric toothbrushes are worth the cost, they do have some advantages in enabling more effective brushing. In particular electric tooth brushes may assist children and people with limited mobility to brush their teeth well. The rotating or oscillating heads of electric tooth brushes can remove plaque and food particles more

efficiently. However, a more advanced version, the sonic electric toothbrush, is able to enhance these advantages further. The major difference is that an oscillating-rotating toothbrush moves while a sonic toothbrush vibrates. The high frequency of vibrations allows sonic toothbrushes to rapidly

clean your teeth, gums, and tongue.

Using toothbrushes such as these can result in better oral hygiene, reducing the risk of teeth cavities and gum disease, fresher breath, and a brighter smile. However, do not forget to floss your teeth!

As part of the trend to connectivity via the Internet of Things (IoT), ‘smart’ toothbrushes are gaining

popularity. A smart toothbrush is an electric toothbrush that connects via Bluetooth to an app on your smartphone or tablet to collect data and provide feedback on how effectively you are brushing

your teeth. Generally, smart toothbrushes come with built-in sensors that monitor your brushing habits such as brush head pressure on the teeth, coverage, brushing duration and other inputs in real-time. Some even include cameras that allows you to livestream the inside of your mouth while

brushing – ensuring you are reaching all corners of your mouth.

Consequently, users learn from their smart toothbrush data to improve their teeth brushing habits and over time can improve their oral health. Feedback can include reminders to brush for the full

two minutes or alerts if you are applying too much pressure to your teeth and gums. Brushing too vigorously can have lasting negative repercussions for your teeth. The information received can be also shared with you dentist, especially if you have any concerns about the health of your teeth and gums.

However, while electric and smart toothbrushes are a useful innovation in dental technology, they aren’t able to replace twiceyearly visits to your dentist, which is the only way to get the most out of these benefits.

Crown Dental Studio is one of the few truly 24-hour dental practises in Durban as this is not limited to emergency dentistry treatment.

Address: 26 Mackeurtan Avenue, Durban North.

T: +27 (0)81 207 8621

E: info@dramod.co.za W: www.dramod.co.za