FOR CLEAN AND HEALTHY TEETH

HEALTHY teeth and gums are the result of several factors ranging from oral hygiene to eating habits and genetic influences. Special children tend to be more susceptible to dental diseases.

The reasons for this lie in the altered physiological conditions in special children like poor oral hygiene, swallowing defects, macroglossia, lack of lip seal and bad habits.

Brush the teeth

Special children tend to maintain poor oral hygiene. This is due to not brushing the teeth properly. Accumulation of plaque in the long run turns into calculus and results in poor oral hygiene, thereby leading to development of gum disease and dental caries.

Another problem is that poor neuromuscular coordination of the tongue and pharyngeal muscles leads to defects in the swallowing mechanism. Drooling and dribbling of saliva paves the way for drying up of saliva leading to bad breath and dental caries.

In some cases, the tongue is enlarged; a condition known as Macroglossia, which results in the problems like protrusion of teeth and increased inter-dental spaces; dripping of saliva leading to a dry mouth, rampant caries and bad breath and lack of lip seal.

Lack of lip seal can occur in three ways: First as incompetent lips seen in case of children with short lips. The second is potentially competent lips in which children have normal lips that fail to form a lip seal, due to proclination of upper incisors.

The last is Everted lips where the lip muscles are weak and do not form a lip seal.

Bad habits such as sucking thumbs or fingers and thrusting the tongue out have a deleterious effect on the teeth and their supporting structures.

Other problems

Then there are other normal dental problems. Rampant caries is a widespread, rapidly burrowing type of caries that appears suddenly and is uncontrolled. Special children sometimes crave for sweets to overcome emotional disturbances, continuous tension, anxiety and fear. Too much sugar in the diet causes rampant caries.

Retained deciduous teeth are milk teeth that fail to shed and block the normal eruption of permanent teeth below it.

As a result, the permanent teeth are deflected from the normal eruption pathway causing irregular arrangement of teeth. Malocclusion is irregular teeth alignment, which occurs due to the any of the above factors.

The management of all these problems includes diet, use of fluoride, frequent examinations and hygiene. The children should be encouraged to eat raw vegetables like carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, radish, onion and gooseberry and also fruits like apples, pears and other seasonal fruits.

Fluoride application helps in prevention of caries. Dental examination in children is usually started in 12 to 14 months of age. Frequent dental examination helps to prevent the onset of diseases.

Good oral hygiene is also crucial to keep the teeth and gums healthy.