BACKGROUND The thyroid gland and its hormones play an important role in the regulation of growth, development and metabolic functions of the body. Thyroid diseases include a group of conditions that can affect the delivery of dental care. LITERATURE REVIEWED The authors conducted a MEDLINE search of the medical and dental literature concerning thyroid disease and its management published betw...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Although preventive dental visits are considered important for maintaining pediatric oral health, there is relatively little research showing that they reduce subsequent nonpreventive dental visits or costs. At least 1 study seemed to find that early preventive dental care is associated with more restorative and emergency visits. Previous studies are limited by their i...

OBJECTIVES To assess Iranian dentists' knowledge of and attitudes towards preventive dental care. METHODS A questionnaire survey was conducted at two nationwide annual dental congresses in 2004 and 2005 in Tehran, Iran. Dentists' level of knowledge was assessed based on their responses on a Likert scale (0-4) to nine statements on preventive dental care. Higher scores indicated more accurate ...

The need for nursing home care will increase for the next several decades. Rural areas will be impacted in particular, as many older adults live in rural areas. Daily oral infection control changes when a person moves from independent living to institutional living. Oral care to dependent individuals is influenced by many factors. The purpose of this study is to determine the association of ora...

Community health centers in the United States improve access to dental care for underserved populations and individuals who live in underserved areas. The not-for- profit health centers provide care to patients regardless of their ability to pay and must follow extensive federal and state regulations. There are 245 California health center sites that provide dental care. This article reviews th...

Dental disease and psychiatric illness are among the most prevalent health problems in the Western world. While the dental needs of mentally ill people are similar in type to those in the general population (Markette et al, 1975) there is some evidence that patients suffering from mental illness are more vulnerable to dental neglect and poor oral health (Stiefel et al, 1990; Armstrong, 1994). S...

BACKGROUND Rural residents have poorer oral health and more limited access to dental services than their city counterparts. In rural communities, health care professionals often work in an extended capacity due to the needs of the community and health workforce shortages in these areas. Improved links and greater collaboration between resident rural primary care and dental practitioners could h...

Elderly patients presenting cardiovascular, respiratory, or neurological disorders require a specific dental care approach, especially patients presenting Alzheimer's disease. Sedative procedures can prevent dental care-induced stress, even when there is effective pain control, but they have to be adapted to accommodate age-induced physiological modifications, age-related pathologies, and the c...

The ability to afford needed dental care is the key difference between those children who miss school due to a dental problem and those who do not. Among all school age children, those who need dental care but cannot afford it are more likely to miss one or more school days due to dental problems Of the 7,240,000 school age children ages 5-17 in California, an estimated 504,000 (7%) missed at l...