Oral Trauma and Injuries in Dentistry

Trauma in Dentistry

• Soft tissue injuries are seen in 28% of patients with oral injuries, often accompanied by dental injuries, while fractures involving the jaw are less common, affecting only 6% of patients.

Consequences of Trauma

• Trauma has physical, psychosocial, and economic consequences for the individual, family, and society.

Importance of Complete Treatment

• Every pediatric patient should receive complete dental treatment for traumatic dental injuries, but this can be complicated and expensive, requiring participation from specialists in multiple disciplines.
• Traumatic dental injuries are often irreversible, requiring lifelong treatment.

Challenges in Treatment Planning

• Constructing a complete treatment plan is challenging due to the diversity of evidence-based interventions and reported outcomes in clinical studies.
• Outcome reporting bias, where researchers selectively report outcomes that enhance results, can affect the validity of clinical studies.

International Association for Dental Traumatology

• The association suggests implementing a standardized trauma management guideline to eliminate diversity and reporting bias, making research findings relevant to patients, clinicians, and policymakers.

Prevalence of Dental Traumatic Injuries

• An increasing number of older people retaining their natural teeth may lead to a rise in the prevalence of dental traumatic injuries due to accidental falls in the geriatric population.

Examination in Trauma Cases

• Before making a treatment plan, dentists must consider the patient's name, age, gender, address, contact numbers, and other factors, including:
  • Symptoms of central nervous system damage
  • General health of the patient
  • Three W's: when, where, and how the injury occurred
  • Previous dental injury history
  • Disturbances in the bite
  • Tooth reactions to thermal changes or sensitivity to sweet/sour
  • Soreness of the teeth during eating or by touching
  • Spontaneous pain in the teeth
  • Risk of concussion or hemorrhage, including symptoms that may be delayed for minutes to hours

Epidemiological Approach to Dental Traumatology

• Traumatic dental injuries are a public dental health problem worldwide, occurring throughout life.
• Every trauma is unique, requiring unique diagnosis and treatment.
• The International Association of Dental Traumatology reports that one in every two children sustains a dental injury, mostly between the ages of 8 and 12 years.
• Rapid and appropriate intervention can lessen the impact of dental trauma from both oral and esthetic standpoints.