Dental implant maintenance and home hygiene – information pathways, clinical practice and patient realities in Australia

Abstract

Dental implants have widened treatment paradigms in dentistry since the 1980s and are placed in the millions annually around the world, but plaque-induced peri-implant diseases which can reduce treatment success are not completely understood. The real-life practices of patients and dental practitioners in minimising peri-implant disease risks have not been widely documented. The information sources from which dental practitioners learn peri-implant maintenance are highly variable and also rarely documented. This thesis investigated the flow of information in implant maintenance and hygiene in Australia: from research, to educators, dental practitioners and patients; the limitations present a..