Abstracts by keywords: prophylactic concept
“The true profession of the dentist is the preservation of natural teeth, but not the extraction of them and the insertion of artificial ones, which may only take place when the former is no longer possible,” wrote the Leipzig dentist S. Guttmann as early as 1829 (Laurisch 2000 ). This historical definition of dentistry has lost none of its relevance today. However, a paradigm shift from curative to preventative dentistry did not occur in Germany until the mid-1990s, when systematic prophylactic concepts were developed for the entire life span with its age-typical risks (IDZ 1996). The Federal Dental Association (BZÄK), the German Society for Dentistry, Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine (DGZMK) and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Dentists (KZBV) jointly took up this concept as a basis for the “new description of a prevention-oriented dental, oral and maxillofacial medicine” and adopted it together with the presentation of legal framework conditions for sustainable implementation in both politics and health care (BZÄK et al. 2004). The Statutory Health Insurance Reform Act in 2000 also led to a realignment of dental treatment guidelines and a realignment of the evaluation standard for dental services (BEMA) according to the model of cause-based and prevention-oriented dentistry. Conservative surgical services were upgraded and at the same time other dental services were devalued.