Oral Care: Special Considerations (Nursing)

00:00 But before you go, I want to leave you with at least 5 more things to consider. So first off, don't forget that oral care key word "at regular intervals" is so very important for our client.

00:17 Now if you remember that regular oral care is what's going to help prevent pneumonia in our client with our hospitalized patients. And now we talked about mouth swabs, those are great for moisturizing the oral cavity; however, they're not a substitute for toothbrush.

00:31 It's not going to remove the same debris as teethbrushing well, and when you're using those swab sticks they're single use only. No one wants those reused in their mouth. So once you use one, toss it, get a new one. And lastly, clients that are NPO are high risk.

00:49 Okay, so what's that mean? When you hear NPO that means nothing by mouth so you cannot eat or drink anything. You can imagine how uncomfortable that is and how much more important oral care and frequent oral care are for those clients.