ndhw 2017

As the month of April is Oral Health Month, celebrated annually on the second week of April is National Dental Hygienists Week (NDHW). For NDHW 2017, it was celebrated from April 8 through April 14. The Dental Hygiene Program at Niagara College put on an event outside of the Niagara College Dental Clinic in the AH foyer.

 

The theme of NDHW 2017 was: Oral Health for Total Health, where the slogan for our event was: “Hit the road plaque!”

Due to this, my group focused on toothbrushing methods. We created a mouth model out of recycled water bottles and pop bottles. As there are 4 quadrants in the mouth and 4 different toothbrushing methods, we created each quadrant specifically for each toothbrushing method.

For example:

• Q1 – Primary teeth = Fones method

• Q2 – Permanent teeth with recession = Stillman’s method

• Q3 – Permanent teeth = Bass Sulcular method

• Q4 – Teeth with braces = Charter’s method
   

We also created a big toothbrush to demonstrate the toothbrushing methods on the mouth model. Each student and guest that demonstrated a toothbrushing method for us received a free toothbrush as we had many toothbrush samples.

It was a lot of fun and people enjoyed demonstrating on our mouth model!

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"Put Your Purple On" and "DH Purple Pride" were preached throughout the week as the colour purple is synonymous with dental hygiene. We lit up some landmarks in the Niagara Region purple in honour of NDHW 2017.