Examining someone else's mouth

Assessing someone else’s mouth Perhaps one of the main personal challenges we face when learning to deliver mouth care for someone else, is looking in and touching their mouth, in order to assess their oral health. It is an intimate contact and requires trust from both us and the person we are caring for.

This week we will learn how to do this: what simple equipment we will need, how we examine and assess someone’s mouth and how we record what we see and decide to do. Being confident to do this is an important skill to develop and central to our Mouth Care Matters work.

You will become aware that the method for examining a mouth is repeated in the following group of assessment videos and demonstrated with different mouths.

We will also learn more of the core oral health knowledge, finding out about tooth decay and gum disease, the two main dental diseases that are almost completely preventable for people with a healthy mouth.