16 Asking Patients About Their Oral Hygiene
Chapter Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn to:
- Ask patients about their oral hygiene practices
- Practice giving recommendations to patients
Questions about general activities (DO YO questions)
When you want to ask a patient about their general oral hygiene activities, you can word the question the same as a statement and use the inflection in your voice to turn it into a question. Listen to the audio clips and pay attention to the different intonations used in statements and questions.
- STATEMENTS:
- (Usted) Usa hilo dental. → You floss.
- Se lava los dientes después de comer. → You brush your teeth after you eat.
- QUESTION:
- ¿Usa hilo dental? → Do you floss?
- ¿Se lava los dientes después de comer? → Do you brush your teeth after you eat?
Another way is to make a question by adding a tag word to the end of the statement such as ¿no?, ¿verdad? , o ¿cierto? (literally, verdad means ‘truth’).
- No usa hilo dental, ¿verdad? → You don’t floss, do you?
- Usa un cepillo electrónico, ¿no? → You use an electric toothbrush, right?
Questions about time and frequency (WHEN and HOW OFTEN DO YOU…?)
¿Cuando…? / ¿A qué hora?
- ¿Cuándo se lava los dientes? → When do you brush your teeth?
- ¿A qué hora trabaja? → What time do you work?
Tarea oral 16.1
Below are some statements. First listen to the audio of the statements being read to hear the pronunciation. Then, you will record an audio of yourself reading each statement as a question by changing the intonation to make it sound like a question.
- Usted vive cerca de la clínica.
- Usted tiene hijos.
- Usted usa un raspador de lengua.
- Usted usa una pasta con flúor.
- Usted usa hilo dental antes de lavarse los dientes.
Frequency questions
Tarea escrita 16.2
Create 6 original questions to ask your patients about the frequency of oral hygiene activities. You can also include questions about activities that could affect one’s oral hygiene, such as things they may eat or drink. In your 6 questions, include at least one of the following types of questions:
- One “DO YOU” question
- One “Cuando” question
- One “Con qué frecuencia” question
- One “Cuántas veces” question