Hygiene Tribune Middle East & Africa No. 3, 2023
Interview: Oral health matters: “This toothbrush is perfect, so why should we change it?”
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DTMEA_No.3. Vol.13_HT.indd
PUBLISHED IN DUBAI
www.dental-tribune.me
Vol. 13, No. 3
Oral health matters: “This toothbrush is
perfect, so why should we change it?”
An interview with Christine Breitschmid
By Dental Tribune MEA
In pursuit of its philosophy of a
healthy mouth equals a healthy
body and mind, Swiss company
Curaden develops top-class oral
care products under its Curaprox
brand and trains dentists and hygienists in the art of prevention
through its individually trained oral
prophylaxis program (iTOP). In this
way, it seeks to help dental professionals become enablers of improved oral health. In this interview, Managing Director Christine
Breitschmid, speaks with Dr Dobrina Mollova of Dental Tribune
Middle East & Africa about oral
prophylaxis, toothbrush design
and the company’s goals and how
it is going about achieving these all
while considering its holistic sustainability.
Could you please tell us more
about your experience and work
at Curaden? How long have you
been at Curaden for?
Since 2012. Of course, before I
started working there, I knew a little about it, Curaden being my father’s company. Of course, I’ve always used the Curaprox toothbrush! As a child, I sometimes
helped out to earn a little bit of
money. In the last ten years, Curaden has grown a lot, developing
many new products, moving into
many new markets and expanding
the dentists we work with. We’ve
taken some big steps in the last 10
to 15 years, so it feels like I’ve been
working at the company for a lot
longer than ten years.
You’ve also been developing
your digital technology, right?
In the end, of course, it’s all
about toothbrushing, but digital
tools can be used to support the
patient and increase the patient’s
motivation, for example. For this,
we developed the BOB-App, which
guides the patient on which interdental brush to use were. It also
provides a bleeding on interdental
brushing index and tracks improvement. Say the patient has 40 interdental spaces and out of these 30
have interdental bleeding, or 75%.
The patient can visualise this poor
result because it’s measured in the
app. If the patient is motivated and
taught how to change this with interdental brushing and cleans in
your bathroom’s colour scheme?
It’s so simple in a way. The colours
also evoke lots of emotion. The design and simplicity are iconic for
Swiss design engineering too.
between the teeth for the next few
weeks, the results can be measured
and shown in the app. Hopefully, he
or she will then have a better score,
providing the motivation to continue the journey.
Do you see further potential
in your digital strategy?
There is still huge potential for
us digitally, of course, because
while it’s always the dentist or dental hygienist who tells patients
what size interdental brush to use
for each space today, maybe in the
future, we can develop a technology that enables the interdental
brush to indicate whether it’s too
big or too small for the space. Many
things are possible, but you have to
know which technology to use or
develop and then you have to determine whether it would really add
value for the patient or the dentist.
We are motivated to find ways for
patients to learn and dentists to
teach and motivate the patients towards the improvement of overall
health or oral health. Whatever
supports this, we should work on to
make it available as a digital tool.
What’s the story about manual versus electric toothbrushes?
The product is only as good as
the person who uses it. So, if I’m
very well trained in using my manual toothbrush, I will be a perfect
tooth brusher and have close to
zero problems. The same goes for
the electric toothbrush. But if I
don’t know how to use my manual
toothbrush, it will not do what it
could do. If I don’t know how to use
my electric toothbrush, it will do
some cleaning, but it could be
much better. For electric toothbrushes, you also need to understand which technology, sonic or
oscillating rotating, is better for
what and when and how to use it.
In the end, and this is our philosophy in our individually trained oral
prophylaxis, it’s an individual
choice for each user.
Can you tell us more about
your iTOP program, which means
individually trained oral prophylaxis?
We are very passionate about
our iTOP courses and training to
teach dental professionals how to
better motivate, educate and instruct their patients. That’s some-
Managing Director Christine Breitschmid at Curaden. (Photos: Curaden)
thing that ideally students should
learn from the beginning. First of
all, how to take care of their own
teeth and oral health as dental professionals and then how to pass on
this knowledge to patients, including how to choose the right interdental brush, how to demonstrate
the right techniques and how to
choose the right tool for the right
person. A dentist’s and dental hygienist’s job involves more than repair; it’s really coaching the patient
for all his or her life. Then the patient will come back to the dentist
happier and more regularly, making it worthwhile financially for the
dentist.
I’d like to talk about the design of your toothbrushes because they’re amazing and
eye-catching. Their design communicates that this company
takes care of patients and their
oral health. What was the rationale for the bright and varied colours?
One reason is our ambition to
think about things a little differently than others and do things differently than others would, so if everybody goes with the standard
colours and everything looks the
same, then we should look different. Another reason is that, like all
the products that we develop, they
must be accepted by the patient.
They must be non-traumatic and
effective. Of course, the brush is effective, and it doesn’t hurt, but it’s
also attractive owing to the colours
and shape. Something beautiful is
easier to accept than something
that is ugly. In any case, you must
have a toothbrush all your life, so
why not make it a nice one? Why
shouldn’t your toothbrush match
Many companies are working
on toothbrush shape, as well as
the holder and working parts.
What is your view on this, Curaden being more traditional?
No, we are not traditional; we
have found the one solution. Form
follows function, right? So first you
have to understand what a toothbrush does and how it does it so
that it can be most effective. That
leads you very quickly to the discovery that the bristles must be
flat, because if you make them different lengths, then you have to
hold the brush in one perfect position and cannot move it, but of
course you have to move it to clean
the teeth. If the bristles are longer
on one side and shorter on the
other, the user is going to push
harder so that all the bristles touch
the tooth, potentially causing recession and pain. It’s thus better to
have all the bristles the same
length, but very thin and very
dense. Our bristles are so thin that,
when you move around the tooth,
they adapt according to the shape
of the tooth, so you don’t have to
exert pressure because they will
just align with the tooth. When it
comes to the handle, it’s octagonal
to give you a clear indication of
how to hold the brush so that you
don’t exert pressure and you apply
it at the right angle. This is really
form follows function; one has to
design the toothbrush according to
how it must work and not just design it because it’s beautiful. We do
add colours and create special editions because this is fun, and it
doesn’t change the quality of the
product.
Are you a constant innovator?
We are not focused on constant innovation, but on making
products that solve problems. This
toothbrush is perfect, so why
should we change it? The only
thing we can do to improve it is
making an even thinner bristle so
that you can use more bristles, giv▶ Page E2
[2] =>
DTMEA_No.3. Vol.13_HT.indd
HYGIENE TRIBUNE
E2
Hygiene Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | 03/2023
◀ Page E1
ing an even softer toothbrush.
That’s what we’ve done with the
new Velvet toothbrush, which has
over 12,000 bristles, more than
twice as many as a CS 5460 toothbrush.
Let’s talk sustainability and
wooden toothbrushes. Do you
have any?
We don’t yet have a wooden
toothbrush, but we are working on
one and might be able to launch it
in summer. We have worked on a
wooden toothbrush for more than
three or four years, because it must
be the perfect quality and perfectly
effective. Do you want wood in
your bathroom, or do you want
clean and healthy teeth? The priority is clear and so whatever product
we develop must fulfil this expectation, otherwise it’s not from
Curaprox. It has taken us a long
time, but now we understand about
wood, and it’s interesting for us to
perform the research to see what is
possible. In Switzerland, we have
wood, so it’s logical that we’d use
Swiss wood. The trouble with wood
is that it’s organic, so it moves and
changes, which is problematic in
the context of moisture from the
mouth and water. You have to make
holes for the bristles, and in getting
wet and dry continually, the wood
moves, so the risk is that the bristles fall out. We’ve worked on this
for a long time, and now I think we
have a good solution.
What exactly do you understand by sustainability?
Sustainability is a holistic approach also. It’s both things like
what kind of material you use as
well as doing things that are for
long-term rather than short-term
impact. For us, sustainability also
means our long history of serving
dental professionals. We work with
dentists and act as their partner on
the long term. We also want to
serve the patient with long-term
oral care... If you brush carefully
and with the right technique, your
toothbrush can last forever... It’s
also an approach to sustainability
to provide the necessary knowledge along with the product so
that patients gain the most from it.
If we can with our products and our
know-how help people to take better care of their oral health, it also
has an impact on general health.
Better health is more sustainable
because you may live a longer life
or don’t need medicine so much.
You have a happier life. This is our
approach to sustainability as a
company. We want to exist long
term, so we are wise in our investments and don’t follow all the
trends, in order to provide workplace security to the people who
work with us. We take a very holistic
approach.
What is your vision for the
company?
I think it’s quite clear: better
health for you. We want to change
the value of oral selfcare in society,
how it is taught and motivated.
That’s why we do so much in education, to make sure that oral care
improves and thus helping to improve general health.
You don’t have any dentists
in the family, right? How did your
father come to have this vision
when he created the company?
He created the Curaprox brand,
and his father, who was a dental
technician, created the company.
He likes to question the status quo,
and then he was trying to find a
niche where he could change
something. At that time, in the seventies and early eighties, it wasn’t
widely known that sugar is really
the cause of caries. The lifestyle
was shifting to sugar-dense diets,
but oral hygiene didn’t keep up. I
think it was a period when dentists
were thinking about the problem of
caries, realising that toothbrushing
was not enough and becoming interested in interdental brushes. My
father spotted this opportunity to
innovate interdental brushes. Stepping into this niche gave him the
chance he was looking for to
change the world.
How do you see Curaden
evolving in the next year, two
years, or five years?
We want to be much more active at university level, political
level and association level, to raise
awareness of the importance of
changing the curriculum to teach
students the connections between
oral health and overall health, the
causes of oral health problems in
relation to prevention and how to
instruct patients on oral care.
I like your passion, but what’s
the motivation for the dentist
with only prevention? It seems
that dentistry would have to
change entirely to accommodate
a prevention-oriented approach.
There are big challenges. You
might have to change the idea of
what your main role of being a dentist is and see yourself as a coach
for your patients to help them to
help themselves. Patients will still
have oral health problems, such as
dental trauma requiring a new
tooth or a deterioration in oral
healthcare owing to a life crisis.
There will still be some caries, but
maybe there will be fewer problems. Maybe fewer dentists will be
needed in the future, maybe being
a dentist will become more fun in
the future.
Tell me about Curaden’s new
cooperation with the International Team for Implantology
(ITI).
It may be the case that a patient
needs an implant because of an accident, but mostly the reason is
poor oral hygiene beforehand. As a
preventive oral care company, we
believe that it is crucial to teach the
patient a good oral care routine
and motivate him or her before
placing the implant and then to
make sure that he or she maintains
this after the implant is in the
mouth. Otherwise, there is the risk
of peri-implantitis or some other
complication. This is where Curaden can complement the ITI. That’s
why I think on the scientific side it’ll
be valuable for us to work together
and be present at the ITI’s congresses to provide information on
the tools and the techniques on
how to motivate first before implant placement and afterwards to
take care of the implant. I see lots
of synergies with our touch-toteach training for implantologists
or their co-workers in the office so
that they can better teach their patients holistic oral hygiene.
What are the greatest challenges facing the company?
Changing mindsets. Our challenge is that we sell products, but
we want to sell teaching. Our products are beautiful, and they work
very well, but in the end, what we
really want to do is to talk with professionals about how they can work
better with their patients. The
product is only one of the tools, the
main thing is education and motivation. As a product company, also
positioning ourselves in the educational field is the challenge.
[3] =>
DTMEA_No.3. Vol.13_HT.indd
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[4] =>
DTMEA_No.3. Vol.13_HT.indd
HYGIENE TRIBUNE
Hygiene Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | 03/2023
INSPIRING ORAL HEALTH SINCE 1972
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Cleanliness in the interdental spaces is the best foundation for oral health.
Once a day is all it takes. Once in and out. Done.
FIND OUT MORE
At curaden.co.za
Exclusive distributors of Curaprox
in Southern Africa.
www.primedental.co.za
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