Megan explains to a young father how to care for his young daughter's teeth,while girls from a local school wait to see the dentist.
It’s a good day to feature Megan Kack and her writing about her research, which was featured here around July 4th. She has now had time to put it into words: ”My research in this village focused on the oral hygiene and oral health awareness of the people in Sutangal village. . . . Oral health/dental hygiene is a topic that receives varying levels of attention throughout the world. Although many tend to think of dental care as a cosmetic treatment, its role as a preventative measure for overall health can be thought of as a way to improve one’s quality of life. I decided to pursue dentistry as a career because of the medical impact that can be made in an individual’s life as well as the potential for future policy change. The country of Nepal opened in the early 1950s. It has a geographic area of approximately 148,000 square kilometers which is divided into four regions: the Kathmandu Valley, East Nepal, Central Nepal, and West Nepal. In 2008, the population was projected to be 26.9 million and a growth rate of 2.25% with the majority of the population under 30 years old. For the Nepalese, life expectancy at birth is 64, yet a high infant and maternal mortality remain. The infrastructure, service, and economy in the country have improved during the last decade, but still many Nepalese live under the poverty line and there is widespread illiteracy. (1) Most of the population subsists on small farms with limited access to roads, health and educational systems. (2)
The village of Satungal is situated in Kathmandu District in the Bagmati Zone of central Nepal. The village is located at an altitude between 1222-1267 m near the Prithni Highway about 3.5 km from Kathmandu Valley. At the time of the 2001 Nepal census it had a population of 5834 with 1375 households in it. The majority of the community is Newar. . . .
The health post serves the surrounding communities. Shtrii Shakti has suggested that the community work to expand it into an integrated health services center for good health and basic diagnosis. The lack of proper water has lead to an increase in hygiene problems. The current health post lacks both doctors and a pathological lab which means many people are forced to go to the city for care. The VDC and YFC have organized for doctors to come once a week which leads to the service of 350 patients per month. The major problems are headache, diarrhea, chest infection, rashes, and uterine prolapsed. Dental problems affect men, women, and child and are a common disease in the community. FCHV have been trained to extract mobile teeth and treat dental pain if financially acceptable for the patient.
A dental camp was conducted in the community of Satungal on Saturday July, 3rd. The Satungal Famers Groups was used as a means of community access and a way to spread the messages among the village population.
In Nepal, dentistry is an occupation that is growing in popularity and professionalism. Through interviews with dentists, I learned that the first dentists in Nepal were trained in India after a Nepalese had received treatment and decided that his country needed to have access to these services. Before this, the people used a traditional method of nailing a coin to a piece of wood as an offering of the toothache to a God. Trade dentists began to establish practices on the same street at the relic. The skill has been passed from generation to generation and many of the shops continue to serve the population performing mostly palliative procedures and construction of dentures.
The dental profession has grown tremendously over the past 20 years. Many foreign trained nationals have received licensure and have established a strong dental presence in the Kathmandu Valley. Dental services are centralized in the Kathmandu Valley and only serve a limited population. Facilities for dental treatment rarely exist outside of the valley and dental problems go ignored in remote regions.
Nepal is home to six dental colleges and two hygiene schools which were founded in 2001. The Nepal Dental Association has helped the profession to grow through its development of a research journal, a network of professionals, and has selected 4 development regions to help spread dentistry across Nepal. Fluoride was integrated into toothpaste in 2002 and has helped to reduce the rate of decay.
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Yet, as a more western diet follows tourists to Nepal so do the troubles of tooth decay. One of the biggest challenges that is faced is the lack of knowledge on the impact of dental care and hygiene. The urban population is starting to become more conscious about the condition of the mouth and this has increased the number of patients seeking professional care.
Dentists have taken initiative to provide care to the community in order to spread the message of the importance of oral health. Dental professionals go to schools to educate on nutrition, dental hygiene, and the importance of seeing the dentist. Many practices and hospitals also conduct camps as a way to serve people who are in most need of care.
An assessment of the state of oral health and dental care in the community was conducted through a free dental camp in the community of Satungal. Satungal has just one dentist that was only been practicing for one year. Therefore, there is a strong need for care as the nearest treatment facility would be 3.5 kilometers away.
Most individuals were seen to know that they need to brush the teeth, but proper techniques were not implemented. Some of the elderly and many people in the remote regions tend to use neem tree twigs to brush or mustard oil and salt. The majority of those surveyed had never been to the dentist before and were relieved to finally receive treatment after many years of suffering.
The end product of the research will be to have provided education to a small population in order to improve the oral health situation, collected information on traditional and western oral hygiene usage and remedies, and to find out what the need for oral health care is, what is being done to provide it, and what can be done to improve it for a greater population. I will have explored the current diet of the population and will know more about whether oral health seems to be affecting overall health. I will have studied the edge of western dental hygiene educaton, its effects, and how to promote it if it is helping.”
