 Let's talk about dental implants and the bone and what you need to know for the board exam. So whether you're a dental hygiene student or a dental assisting student, you do need to know about dental implants. This is relatively a new topic. I mean, dental implants have been around for a while, but when I took the board exam a while ago, I've been a dental professional since 2005, there wouldn't have been questions on dental implants because they just weren't done. They weren't popular enough. Now they are done more and more, but I find a lot of students really aren't sure how much they need to study regarding dental implants. And the good news is it's not too much, but I'm going to go over what you need to know for the board exam. So in the VIP Board Exam Prep Academy, we are currently on week eight, but don't worry if you were thinking about signing up, you can sign up anytime. It is learn at your own pace. But if you do follow along with us, we're on week eight and one of our topics this week was dental implants and the bone. So I'm going to open up a PowerPoint to show you guys. This is the exact PowerPoint that I had used when I taught the class just this morning. And I'm going to give you guys a little video. So I'm not going to teach the entire class for one hour, but I'm going to go over a couple slides with you on what you have to know for the board exam. So let's just get right into that. So basically what you need to know about implants, actually, you guys, I'm going to skip down to this slide here. Can you guys see these three pictures? So basically what you need to know about dental implants is that implants are the next best thing to your natural tooth. If you need, if you need to replace a tooth because it's missing, dental implants is the best thing to do opposed to, let's say, a dental bridge or a partial denture or something like that. A dental implant actually screws into your bone and it feels and looks like your mouth, your, your most natural tooth. So what you need to keep in mind, and that's what I have highlighted here is peri implant disease. So it's very easy to get gum disease around an implant because as you can see, there's no tooth root there. If there's no tooth root, that means there's no cementum and there's no periodontal ligaments. So if there's a little bit of gingivitis around the gum tissue, it can actually seep into the bone right away. So you have to be very, very careful. So implants are amazing, but you have to be careful and take care around them. So actually I'm going to move up to the first slide again. So I was just basically saying in this one, you have to be careful with your dental implants, but you must know that you still have to brush them and do all of that normally. As with your natural tooth, it is possible to brush the tooth too hard. It's possible to make the enamel thinner if you are brushing too hard, if you're clenching, grinding, any of that, but you still have to take care of it properly now so more than ever. So by brushing, using the water pick, a mouthwash, all of that because unfortunately with implants, as I mentioned, it's very easy to get gum disease, but it's also plaque and calculus can still happen. Even though the dental implant isn't natural tooth enamel, you can get plaque and calculus there quite easily. Now I mentioned a little bit here that titanium is the best implant material. Know this, you must know that titanium is typically what the implant screw is going to be made out of. If on the board exam, they're asking you any questions and you see the word titanium, that's a pretty good indication it's going to be talking about dental implants. The bottom part here is just basically talking about what I had mentioned that if there is any gum disease present, any pathogens present, it's going to go right to the bone instead of your natural tooth where it might, there's a couple other channels to go through because you have your periodontal ligaments, you have the root surface, you have the cementum, it doesn't just attack the bone right away. So some important things to consider also for the board exam, the long cone paralleling technique is the way to go, opposed to the bisecting technique. This is just because you can get the proper angle. You will be taking x-rays on your client who has dental implants every year. It's not going to be something where you're taking x-rays every five years. It's going to be every year, especially for the first little bit that the implant has been placed because that's the only way to keep an eye on that implant. That abutment piece, which you can't see because the crown is covering it, but that abutment piece could become loose. And the only way to know that is to check the x-ray unless it's quite loose and the patient tells you, my implant's kind of loose here, then that's pretty obvious. But it's not normal to get bone loss anytime, but a rounded implant 0.2 is more normal, spelling mistake there, sorry guys, but 0.2 is like I can barely see it, right? So that's normal. This question has been asked on the board exam before. The only way to clean a dental implant is by using plastic instruments, gold instruments or ones that have graphite fillers in them. This is very important to note. And you would not use them apical to the crown because then that means you're going to scratch the titanium. Titanium is the best screw for implants because it helps the bone osteointegrate and kind of mold and form, but it does scratch easily. So you can't just be going to town cleaning that titanium screw, it could scratch. If it scratches, plaque and tartar can get on there so much easier. The last point. So the last point is that no probing is necessary if the peri implant tissue is healthy. This depends on the dentist and it depends on the office. I've been in offices before where I'm probing a dental implant every year just to make sure it looks good, but that I have been in offices where they say if the gum looks healthy around it, don't probe it because any of the connective tissue fibers that are trying to attach, not the periodontal ligament, that's different. You cannot have any periodontal ligaments with implants, but connective tissue fibers you still can. Anything that's trying to attach, you could actually break that by probing. So talk to the dental office, talk to who you're working for, but this has been on the board exam before that you don't have to probe if things look healthy. So last little bit you guys, I really like this picture here because it's showing you the different steps. First you would screw the implant into the bone, you have the abutment screw here, but all of this has to heal until you continue on. This but not least we have the crown that goes over top. So this PowerPoint here was I think an 80 page PowerPoint. I'm going to stop it there, just think of the basics that you want to know for the board exam and I do hope this helped you guys out a lot. So basically you need to know what the implant is made of, you need to know how to take care of it, how the implant process works. So every little step there, so as I had mentioned, first you're going to put in the titanium screw that has to heal, the abutment goes on top of that and then the crown goes on top of that. But these are done at separate appointments, sometimes the screw in the abutment is the same appointment, but even if you're not part of the VIP board exam prep academy course, look in your textbook. These are the basics you have to know about the dental implants and, which I forgot to mention, you do have to know the different types. I'll see if I can find that quickly for you guys. So do you guys know the three different types? I found them. So I'm going to show you my screen one more time here. So the three different types are the endosteal, the transosteal and the subperiosteal types. I have that actually in slide 14 for my VIP students. You need to know the three different types. The most common is the one placed into the bone, but then you have one that's just placed on the surface of the bone beneath the periosteum. And then you have one that's placed through the bone. And these are really good pictures. So this is the one that you're used to or have probably heard of the most. But then there's also a metal plate that could happen that goes all the way down to the bottom of the bone. And then there's one that goes through the bone. So those are the different types. So I hope that helps you guys. Let me know if there's any questions. And if you're not part of the VIP Board Exam Prep Academy, it's a great course to be a part of. You learn everything you have to know for the board exam. You don't even have to open up your textbooks if you don't want to. Because I have it all in PowerPoints for you. And it's learn at your own pace. So you could sign up today and start in module one and then go through to the very end. Every single module has mock exams and case studies and a teaching video such as this one where I teach you the material first. So you've heard it first through your instructors at school. You have studied it and then you're kind of hearing me teach it to you. That's the best way to learn because some instructors you're going to learn better from, right? But then if I'm also teaching you the topic in a slightly different way, it's going to stick in there better. And then you will feel confident and you will pass the board exam. So let me know you guys if you have any questions. Thank you for watching and I'll see you the next time.