Premium
Dental caries and administrative status occurrence in Finnish children with mentally handicapping conditions
Author(s) -
PALINPALOKAS TUIJA
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
special care in dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.328
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1754-4505
pISSN - 0275-1879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-4505.1987.tb00653.x
Subject(s) - medicine , mentally retarded , oral hygiene , dental care , psychiatry , pediatrics , dentistry , psychology , developmental psychology
Caries prevalence was recorded in 204 Finnish children, aged 9 to 10 years (125 had mentally handicapping conditions, 79 had no mentally handicapping conditions—identified in this paper as “normal”). The children with mentally handicapping conditions used preventive fluoride less frequently and their standard of oral hygiene was much poorer than that of the normal children. In the registered children with mentally handicapping conditions, caries occurrence was less than that in the normal children. In the unregistered children with mentally handicapping conditions, caries occurrence was greater than in the normal children. Irrespective of administrative status or severity of mentally handicapping conditions, these children received less dental treatment than the normal children with regard to treatment need. The need to further educate dental care personnel in the dental treatment of these children seems evident, especially as long as the dental care system is not able to meet the restorative dental treatment needs of the children with mentally handicapping conditions. The necessity of preventive regimens for these children should be emphasized even at low levels of caries occurrence.