Oral Health Promotion for People with Special Needs - Research Paper Example

? Oral Health Promotion for People with Special Needs Introduction Oral health is an important aspect of general health that many people often downplay, seemingly due to lack of knowledge that it touches almost every part of an individual’s life. Oral health acts as a window that can tell a lot about the general health of the body, with illnesses, mostly system illnesses, depicting their presence in the body through the occurrence of oral disorders. The most outstanding nature of poor oral health is that it can affect any stage across the lifespan, irrespective of age or any other discriminating factors. In the United States alone, research estimates that about 100 million Americans overlook the importance of oral health in their lives, prompting a call to some form of action. The only possible solution to this problem is through sensitization about the role of good oral health, how to observe it, and preventing bad oral health. Poor oral health does not have a specific symptom or way of manifestation, but appears in various forms. The World Health Organization summarizes the major contributors to bad oral health as unhealthy eating habits, the use of tobacco, consumption of alcohol in harmful manners, and lack of observing good oral hygiene. It further describes oral health as the state of lacking any disorder or disease associated with the oral cavity. Disease and disorder in this case refers to facial pain, chronic mouth pain, oral cancer, throat cancer, oral birth defects, gum disease, less teeth, tooth decay, and oral sores (World Health Organization, 2013). This study particularly focuses on special needs patients and how their conditions affect their day-to-day routines, and how he people taking care of them ensure they have all their necessities. It will also go into depth of how difficult it is for them to obtain and maintain good oral health, and suggest the potential strategies that can apply in enhancing and maintaining their good oral health. According to Gluck & Morganstein (2003), the United States has an estimated 53 million physically or mentally impaired people. One of the major problems that special needs patients face is limited access to dental health services due to their demand for specialized treatment that differs from that of other patients without special needs. There are many places that can offer dental care to the elderly and special needs patients, but still today professionals are in need for advanced training. For instance, an elderly patient requires an oral health practitioner who has the knowledge of the aging process and the dental diseases or disorders that associate with old age. Second, they require dental facilities that can accommodate and appropriately treat them. This means that they have to seek treatment only in dental facilities that have modifications made to accommodate their disabilities, which also tend to be limited. Special needs patients with intellectual disability experience low practices of oral health owing to their inability to understand what they have to do to prevent, denote, or cure oral health disorders. Unlike people with normally functioning mental abilities, they cannot manage their own oral health in that they: cannot learn oral health management, cannot communicate their oral needs, and tend to fear oral health operations. Such people display higher infections of dental caries, periodontal diseases, having missing teeth, prolonged retention of primary teeth, additional teeth, and misaligned teeth (Simon, Erickson, Lloyd, & Carlson, 2004). Special needs patients with neurobehavioral disorder also experience sufferings associated with lack of, or access to limited oral health care. Owing to their uncooperativeness because of the fear, anxiety, fidgeting, resistance, self-injurious reactions, violent tantrums, and other behavioral disorders, it is difficult and at times impossible to extend oral health procedures to them. They therefore fall prey to the many aspects of poor oral health, mostly prolongation of retaining primary teeth and misaligned teeth (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, 2013). Another segment of special needs patients is those with psychological disorders. Their nature means their brains do not function normally and therefore cannot perform as normal humans. An example is a child with cerebral palsy that results from brain damage that occurs during or shortly after gestation. Individuals with cerebral palsy experience problems with muscle coordination and locomotion. They might also experience abnormal speech, visual and hearing impairments, and general mental retardation (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, 2013). These factors usually deny the children the independence of performing basic oral health procedures and practices, meaning they have to depend on others to provide the necessary assistance. Physical disability is one of the most retarding factors to access and implementation of oral health practices. According to Arnold, Brookes, Griffiths, Maddock & Theophilou (2000), people living with physical disabilities continually experience poorer oral health than normal people despite the many efforts put in place to try to equalize this. About 6.5 million Americans (adults and children) experience mobility problems and about 2.5 million of them do not retain the capacity to execute simple personal care procedures such as brushing their teeth. These incapacitations occur more as one ages. On a larger scale, the lack of mobility means that their access to information and oral care facilities and procedures has limitations. For instance, stairs and other physical barriers will not allow a person on a wheelchair to ascend to a dental facility on multi-floor buildings. These and many other factors result in irregular visits and delays to oral health professionals thus their poor oral health status. The other batch of special needs people is that of the aged in the American society who in the 2000 census were close to 35 million. This bracket covers those with age 65 years and above. Those who find most difficulty in accessing oral health care are the destitute, without health insurance, the disabled, and the institutionalized. Many lose the access and affordance of (dental) medical insurance when they attain retirement and the situation is worse for elder women who owing to their low income did not have any medical insurance at all. Cavities, coronal cavies, and periodontal gum diseases are the most common oral disorders that affect the aged because they are at the age when they experience gum recession, which largely exposes their teeth to external factors. In addition to the above, this batch of people also face higher risks of contracting pharyngeal and oral cancers which claim about 7,400 lives annually. For those whose locomotion is disabled or limited by age and have no one to look after them, poor oral health is a common condition that affects them. Another common oral disorder for the elderly is painful facial nerves that affect their moods and oral-motor functions like swallowing and chewing. The loss of the motor functions means limitation of one’ ability to care for themselves (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). The Diffusion Theory Health Promotion Model Oral health as defined before does not discriminate whom to affect or not in society, so it is best to deal with it in at a communal perspective because it is much easier to establish resolutions of solving oral health issues only after there is an understanding of how it affects lives across the lifespan. In this case, the diffusion theory is therefore the best method of health promotion. Just as the name suggests, this theory penetrates through the society from a particular source such as the public health sector. This method applies at different rates in getting to the targets, which are explained using three types of people in the society. One, there is the batch of people called innovators and these are the people who acquire interest in a new idea or product very fast. Then there is the second batch called early adopters who form the largest population amongst us, and are those people who need to consider new ideas or products before adopting them. Then finally, there is the last batch of people called the late adopters, who are the people that require a lot of prompting before they can adapt to new ideas or products. By understanding these three categories of people, it is easy to device effective means of inflicting change in each category. The power of this approach is in that it is hard for an individual to be separated from the social milieu they belong to, so it is much easier and more effective for multiple-intervention approaches to reach and successfully change the behaviors and acts of individuals living with special needs through social contexts (Merzel & D’Afflitti, 2003). So how does this approach relate to reaching resolutions seeking to ensure that even those with special needs in society receive all they need regardless of their conditions to live normally? From the types of special needs that this discussion earlier highlighted, it is evident that their effects are similar, and can be dealt with if grouped together before finding the resolutions to curb them. People with most or all kinds of special needs end up with one similar trait, and that is the incapacity to execute some daily routines independently, greatly relying on external assistance. This dependence on others is what might culminate to (oral) diseases in the instances when the caregivers become ignorant or are not available at all owing to the inability of the patients to perform routines necessary for living normally. This is where the Diffusion Theory Health Promotion Model comes into play. It targets the society as a whole, sensitizes it on an issue, which in this case is promotion of oral health for those with special needs, and empowers the healthy society on the means of assisting those with special needs to live and enjoy normal lives irrespective of their hindering disabilities. Paul, Casamassimo, Fields, Dennis, McTigue & Lowak (2012) summarizes the aspects that we need to consider with regard to the people in society with special needs, and how the Diffusion Theory Health Promotion Model can apply in reviving and reversing their sufferings from these oral diseases: Application of the Diffusion Theory for resolving oral health issues for people with special needs Accessibility The people with special needs in society in most cases experience mental or physical obstacles that deny them the ability to access oral health care. Such make them require special conditions or alterations to enable them access oral health assistance. This is solvable by having health providers trained specially to deal with such conditions, buildings constructed to enable them to navigate, staff should be of supportive attitude, transport systems should not limit them, and every other infrastructure that hinders them should be altered to make them fit in. Finances The incapacitation that comes because of the special needs by the affected in society at instances denies them the ability to participate in earning their own living. This translates to their inability to foot medical (oral) expenses thus their status of lacking proper or adequate oral health. The society should participate in public and private programs and raise funds to cater for such expenses, and the existing public reimbursing bodies to give them rates that even encourage the participation of oral health practitioners. Communication This aspect is very important in that most of the people in need of special attention at times tend to be ignored or forgotten, adding psychosocial complications to their existing conditions. They have compromised communication styles that normal people cannot understand. The oral health professionals and people living with such people must understand how they can best communicate with them, as this will open a window through which both parties can understand each other. If there is a channel through which these people communicate their needs, it is possible to give them their oral demands, and teach them oral hygiene. Mobility and stability The people with special needs at times have physical or psychological impairment that results in their not being able to relocate or lack the ability of some motor functions such as opening their mouths for checkups or just sitting upright. In such cases, they should be provided with artificial support, stabilization, and just any assistance so that they do not fail to achieve full human priorities owing to their conditions like having oral checkups. Preventive measures Finally is the assistance of the people with special needs to prevent acquisition of oral disorders in instances where they do not have the ability to understand it, or cannot consent to apply the preventive measures. It is the role of the society and caregivers to find means of supplementing oral hygiene with antimicrobials and fluoride rinses. In the event that the patient has the ability to take instructions, then they should be informed of what to do in making decisions concerning their oral health. Their overall care should be constant and they should not be exposed to the risks of being oral neglects. Conclusion From the discussion, there is enough evidence of how important oral health is to the well-being of an individual despite the fact that it covers only a small part of the human body. When to normal people it appears to be a not-so-important matter, the people with special demands might tell a different story of their experience with bad oral health if they could. It is shocking to learn that oral cancers actually claim thousands of lives annually when in real sense most of us do not consider oral hygiene as a threat to life. In conclusion, the evaluation of the issue tells that the best and effective means of promoting good oral hygiene to the people with special needs is through a community-based approach. It is through such that the voice of everyone in the community is heard as this approach considers each level of the lifespan, and tackles the issues affecting that particular segment of life. The community-based approach places the responsibility of promoting the oral health standards of people with special needs in the hands of everyone in the community. References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013, July 10). Adult Oral Health. Oral Health for Older Americans. (2006, December). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/OralHealth/publications/factsheets/adult_oral_health/adult_older.htm Gluck, G., M., & Morganstein, W., M. (2003). Jong's community dental health. St. Louis, Mo: Mosby. Merzel, C., & D’Afflitti J. (2003, April) Reconsidering community-based health promotion: promise, performance, and potential. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447790/ National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. (2013, July 29). Practical Oral Care for People with Intellectual Disability. Retrieved from http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/OralHealth/ Originating Council. (2012). Guideline on Management of Dental Patients with Special Health Care Needs. Retrieved from http://www.aapd.org/media/Policies_Guidelines/G_SHCN.pdf Paul, S., Casamassimo, P., S., Fields, H., W., Dennis, J., McTigue, D., J., & Nowak, A. (2012). Pediatric Dentistry - Pageburst E-Book on VitalSource, Infancy through Adolescence, 5. Health Sciences. Simon, M., Erickson, M., Lloyd, C., & Carlson, G. (2004). The Experiences and Perceptions of Unit Managers in Facilitating Oral Health in Adults with Intellectual Disability, Vol 3 (4). Retrieved from http://www.ijdcr.ca/VOL03_04_CAN/articles/lloyd.shtml World Health Organization. Oral Health. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/oral_health/en/ Read More