he first step towards change is awareness." A holistic approach of dental health care, awareness and patient support is critically important to a long term success of the treatment. There is sparse literature on dental health awareness, attitude and oral health care among the adult population in India. Oral health has been neglected for long and the need for dental awareness cannot be overstated. As it's said "Cleanliness is next to godliness", thus cleansing of dentures is essential for the maintenance of residual oral tissue health. We as dentists can help maintain oral tissue health by providing the information needed about denture cleansing techniques to the patients.

This survey throws light on the denture cleansing habits of the patients and dentist perspective towards training patients to maintain denture hygiene.

In this study, a total of 100 patients and 100 practising dentists living in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai were surveyed regarding their opinions and views about denture hygiene and cleansing routine, using a prepared questionnaire. This survey was undertaken from August 15, 2014 to September 15, 2014.

In this study, it has been revealed that all the 100 practising dentists advise denture cleansing habits to their patients ( Majority of the dentists 58% instruct patients to clean their dentures after meals, followed by 32% who instruct cleansing after meals as well as before sleeping (Fig 7). Only 44% dentists advise professional cleansing of dentures once a year, 34% twice a year, the rest advice it less frequently (Fig 6).

When the dentists were asked for the reason of negligence of the professional cleaning of the dentures, 33% said patient negligence of professional denture cleansing is due to the cost factor, 29% said it was due to the time factor. 25% was from not wearing the dentures for a day and 13% dentists evaluated the other factors such as patient unawareness and laziness.

The result of the present survey from the patients perspective indicated that 61% patients did not feel their dentures to be as nice as new, unlike the other 39% (Fig 11). Majority of the patients 92% felt regular cleansing of their dentures are necessary (Fig 12). 56% patients clean their dentures twice a day followed by 36% who clean it thrice a day and 8% who clean them once a day (Fig 13

Edentulism is a growing problem in our society. The number of fully and partially edentulous patients is still increasing today. Dentures are an artificial substitute for missing natural teeth and adjacent tissues (1).

Regular cleansing of the denture prosthesis is necessary to increase the longevity of the prosthesis. The present survey is conducted on patients between the age of 35 to 65 years.

We discussed denture cleansing habits with patients as well as dental professionals. We asked both the patients and the dentists as to how often the denture should be cleansed to which majority of the dentists (70%) said once a day, these results agree with those of Nevalainen et al(2) and De Castelucci Barbosa et al(3),and 56% of the patients said twice a day. Keeping in mind, the denture cleansing agent from patient to patient varies, therefore the number of times the patient cleans the denture also varies.

There are various methods to clean a denture, soap and water, brush and toothpaste, brush alone, and denture cleansing agents. Majority of the dentists recommended brushing with toothpaste along with soaking their dentures into denture cleansing tablets, followed by using denture cleansing agents alone, whereas majority patients prefer cleaning their dentures by brushing with a toothpaste (35%). Similar results were obtained in previous studies conducted by removing the biological plaque on the surface of the dentures, therefore majority of the dentists (80%) recommend sodium perborate. Oxidizing nature of this chemical has the ability to remove stains as well as the advantage of having an antimicrobial action. Ideally, surface abrasions which will cause undesirable aesthetic and biological result(6,7). Dentrifice has a higher patient compliance because of its simplicity and cost effective characteristics. Mechanical methods of denture cleansing are not effective in completely Peracini et al(4) and Jegantha et al(5). Brushing with a toothpaste is a mechanical method of denture cleansing, however if done incorrectly it may lead to accumulates plaque. When plaque reacts with saliva, it hardens into calculus, therefore professional cleaning machines are available to remove this said calculus. It is extremely important for the dentist to re-call the patients to evaluate the oral hygiene habits, consequently 98% of the dentists re-call the patients for the evaluation of the dentures and maintenance of oral health issues.

V.

Within the limits and demography of the survey the following conclusions were drawn: 1) Denture wearers did not clean their dentures satisfactorily. 2) Dentists did not provide complete information about denture cleanliness to their patients. 3) Most of the patients preferred the mechanical method of denture cleansing i.e brushing with toothpaste twice a day. 4) Most of the dentists recommended mechanical and chemical cleansing methods.