Oral Hygiene and the Organization of a PreventiveProgramme in Children with Hearing Disorders

Overview

Summary:
Children with impaired hearing are entitled to more time in the dental surgerythan healthy children. The objective of the work was to provide complete preventive careregardless of the child’s affection.The authors investigated children in the Institute for childrenwith hearing disorders. The group was divided into two subgroups S1 (born in 1990–1995) andthose born in 1985–1989) and a control group of healthy subjects divided similarly. In bothgroups the caries rate was evaluated by the DMF index and the index of oral hygiene by theP1I index. The mean caries rate in the younger children of the investigated and control groupwas almost identical, in the older children it was significantly higher in the affected children.The increment of new caries was after introduction of the preventive programme lower thanin the equally long period before the investigation. In the younger children the number of cariesdeclined on average from 0.5 to 0.23, in the older ones from 0.82 to 0.63. The P1I values declinedsteadily during every examination and the older children achieved a significant improvement.Their resultant plaque index had a mean value of 0.32 and in the control group 0.65. The paperevaluated the preventive programme of oral health provided to children with impaired hearing where the main emphasis was on training of a correct technique of tooth brushing. If communicationis established the patient is no longer handicapped in the dental surgery.

Key words:
preventive programme – impaired hearing – communication – oral hygiene –dental caries