Pocket elimination therapy– The rhyme and reason

Abstract

Effective patient home care, coupled with regular professional maintenance, is the cornerstone of all successful therapy. A patient who is unwilling or unable to demonstrate the necessary level of plaque removal efficacy and commitment should never be considered a candidate for interdisciplinary therapy. Rather, all efforts must be made through instructional, motivational, technical, and chemical means to help the patient in question control plaque levels and thus provide a reasonable milieu for the acceptance of the necessary dentistry. Failure to demand such a level of plaque control results in therapeutic failure, and increased levels of frustration and anxiety for both the patient and the treating clinicians. While the patient has an obligation to make every effort to perform appropriate plaque control, it is imperative that the treating clinicians provide the patient with a milieu that is most conducive to effective plaque control, and that provides the greatest chance of a favorable long term prognosis. © This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.