Preventive dentistry emphasizes the importance of ongoing hygiene procedures and daily practices to prevent tooth decay and other dental diseases and conditions.

Everyone benefits from preventive dentistry. Children in particular benefit because it allows their newly developing adult teeth to come in strong and healthy. Aging adults benefit from preventive dentistry because it helps them to keep their real teeth.

Your dental team may recommend a course of treatment to get your mouth into good condition, and then work out a ‘maintenance plan’ to help you keep it that way. The overall aim is to make you “dentally fit” (i.e. get your mouth healthy) and to keep you that way so that dental problems don’t recur in the future.

If your teeth have already been damaged (by decay, etc.), your dentist will devise a treatment plan to repair the damage and will discuss the treatment options with you. In the interests of prevention your dentist may recommend that weakened teeth are repaired with a filling or crown before they break.