Spring Speakers Series: Why mouth care matters?

Jessica Mann, Dental Core Trainee and Mili Doshi, Special Care Consultant. Mili Doshi will be speaking at BGS Spring Meeting in Gateshead. 

Did you know there are more bacteria living in your mouth than there are people in the world?  The mouth is biggest hole in the body – it is highly visible, we eat though it, talk through it and smile with it, but when we need help caring for it, often that help is not there! Yet deteriorating oral health can have severe consequences for the rest of the body…

If you have a problem with your vision a doctor will check your eyes, but if you are not eating is it common practice for a doctor or nurse to check if there are problems with the mouth? 

Spring Speakers Series: Denture Loss

Mili Doshi, clinical lead for Mouth Care Matters, discusses the impact of denture loss. She will be speaking at BGS Spring Meeting in Gateshead.

As a hospital dentist it’s always a heart sink moment when you get the referral from the ward that reads, “Mrs X has lost her dentures, please could you replace them”. If only it was that easy…

Mrs X has not only lost her dentures, but also the ability to eat her meals, communicate clearly, smile at her family and potentially, her dignity.

It is normally a similar story. Mrs X had fallen asleep and her dentures weren’t there when she woke up, she had wrapped them in some tissue to keep them clean, safe or left them on her meal tray.  One way or another they were accidentally mistaken for rubbish and disposed of. She had been in hospital for days yet no one had asked if she had dentures and therefore she wasn’t provided with a denture pot to keep them clean.

Spring Speakers Series: Getting it Wrong? Technologies and Telehealth for an Ageing Population

Dr Malcolm J. Fisk is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Computing and Responsible Research, De Montfort University, Leicester. He will be speaking at BGS Spring Meeting in Gateshead.

Most of the readers of this blog can look forward to a healthy and long(ish) life. The likely quality of that life is, of course, open to debate and depends on a number of factors. One of these factors is concerned with the accessibility and usability of many of the technologies through which we’ll be able to keep engaged (and, yes, that does include working into our older age). Another factor relates to our use of sometimes specialist technologies that can help us with our ailing bodies or minds.   

Spring Speakers Series: Why worry about mouthcare?

Sam Shah discusses the HEE supported project exploring hydration, nutrition and mouthcare in hospital and community care settings. The project involves training staff and raising awareness to improve the quality of care, to help avoid admission and to support discharge. The insights from this project will be shared at the  BGS Spring Meeting in Gateshead on the 28th April at 9:30-11:00.

We are all accustomed to brushing our own teeth and cleaning our mouths, it’s entrenched in the daily routines of most people. Most of us are able to eat and drink ourselves and we understand the link between what we eat and our how our bodies respond. A big challenge in the care of frail older people, and those in high needs settings, is ensuring their hydration, nutrition and mouthcare needs are supported.

Spring Speakers Series: Assessing memory and thinking in stroke – it’s confusing

Dr Terry Quinn (Joint Stroke Association / CSO Senior Clinical Lecturer) has a clinical and research interest in post stroke cognitive decline. Supported by a Stroke Association Priority Program Grant he is pursuing a portfolio of work themed around how to assess cognition and mood in the Acute Stroke Unit. Terry will be sharing some of the findings from this and other work at the BGS Spring Meeting in Newcastle as part of a themed session on dementia. Terry tweets about all things cognitive @DrTerryQuinn and in his role as Coordinating editor of the Cochrane Dementia Group @cochraneDCIG

Specialist societies, clinical guidelines and audit standards all encourage us to assess cognition when patients present with stroke. Intuitively this seems like a sensible idea. We know that patients fear problems with memory and thinking more than they fear physical disability and we know that cognitive problems are extremely common in the post stroke period. What is less clear is how we should assess cognition in stroke.

Spring Speakers Series: Coroner’s Inquest

Mr Leslie Hamilton recently took early retirement (pressure of the on-call transplant rota) as a cardiac surgeon but continues to sit as Assistant Coroner. He is currently on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and is a past President of SCTS (Society for C/Th Surgery). He will be Chairing a special workshop at the BGS Spring Meeting on Thursday 27 April.

You have just received a letter asking you to attend Court. You get a tachycardia. What is it about?

There are four courts which doctors can face in relation to their medical practice.  It could be the GMC’s Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (the old Fitness to Practice panels) – though strictly speaking it is a Tribunal rather than a court. It is however adversarial in nature with full legal representation.  It could be in relation to a clinical negligence claim – in the civil court. An increasingly common occurrence in many specialties. Or very rarely it could be for the criminal court on a charge of wilful neglect or gross negligence manslaughter.