Caring for an Elderly Parent With Special Dental Needs
Common Considerations For Gum Grafting
Joe Lawrence
If you have periodontal disease and also have a great deal of gum recession, then your dental professional may suggest a gum grafting procedure to help treat the issue. If so, there are a number of decisions that need to be made in regard to the grafting. Keep reading to learn about a few of them.
Tissue Source
There are a variety of different ways that a tissue graft can be performed and your dentist will first need to work with you to decide on the best source for the tissue. The best source is from your own mouth and tissue can be taken from the upper palate for a grafting procedure. In this case, a strip of tissue is taken from the right or left side and moved to the region where the gums are needed.
If the tissue is not thick enough along the palette or if you need multiple grafts in different locations, then your dental professional may suggest the placement of tissue from a donor bank. This means that tissue will be used from an individual who donated it when they died. The tissue type will be matched closely to your own to make sure there are no complications with the tissue.
Also, if you have enough tissue around the treatment area, then this tissue may be moved or stretched out. This type of procedure allows your dentist to keep one edge of the tissue attached so healing can occur more quickly and also so that tissue damage is minimized from the start.
Attachment Type
Once the type of tissue graft is considered, the actual attachment of the tissue needs to be decided on as well. For both palette graft procedures and ones using donor tissue, the gums are typically stitched in place. Depending on the thickness of the tissue, this is called either a connective tissue or free tissue graft. Typically, donor tissue involves the full tissue thickness, and this may mean the placement of more stitches.
If tissue is moved or stretched out, then you will also need stitches. However, the attachments will be minimal. In many cases, flaps are created with your own tissue and this reduced the need for sutures and extensive healing.
In addition to the placement of tissue with sutures, your dentist may also use collagen chips and other synthetic materials to encourage the healing process. These materials are added underneath the gums and help with the adhesion of the tissues to the dental roots.
If you want to know more about gum grafting and how treatments can be used to treat periodontal disease, speak with a dental professional.
Share
Caring for an elderly parent tends to be tough enough without the added stress of dealing with dental implants or dentures. But, the prospect is not the end of the world—there are many things you can do to ensure that your parent's dental health is not compromised without having to spend a lot of personal time doing the care yourself. Between working with the right dentist, hiring a service provider for part time work, and giving your parent the tools he or she needs to care for his or her own dental health at home, you'll find that dental health for your loved one isn't so tough or time consuming after all. Hopefully you are able to get the support and information you need right here.