Assessment of Oral Health Status and treatment needs in visually impaired children and to develop a new Braille tool for Oral health education - A Randomised Controlled Trial

Background of study:

According to WHO [2009], it has been estimated that globally 314 million people are visually impaired and 45 million of them are blind. The Census 2011 shows that, in India 20.42 lakhs children aged 0-6 years are disabled among them 30% has difficulty in seeing.The prevalence of blindness in the Country ranges from 14 per 1000 to 3 per 1000 population.  In Tamil Nadu, the prevalence of blindness is 4 per 1000 population. Oral health of children with special health care needs has been one of grey areas in the field of paediatric dentistry. Children with special health care needs present unique challenges for both paediatric and general dentists in order to provide them access to the oral health care system by establishing a treatment plan for those with unique medical, behavioural and dental needs and maintaining oral health over the lifetime. Models, audiotapes, magnifying aids, large print materials, raised label markers; Braille scripts, bold scripts, etc. can be used as instructional aids. Positive reinforcement of the information provided is a very important factor in building a strong foundation, especially in the case of visually impaired children. Braille is the language and an important media for reading and writing for the visually impaired. It helps them perceive & visualize the world via touch and also to understand & assert a certain meaning to a word. Audio aids are being used in education to help the visually impaired to understand and grasp the matter. 

Need for study: In recent years, there have been an increasing number of studies concerning the dental health of general population. However, very little attention has been paid to the dental health of the physically handicapped population, who actually deserve special care and attention in this field. It is needless to say that due to their physical handicap these group of population cannot be expected to maintain proper oral hygiene and dental health for want of proper education.

Materials and  methods: It is a randomised controlled trial shall be conducted among  visually impaired children, in Chennai. Children who were congenitally and acquired blind were going to be  included. Children with underlying systemic disease and/or other handicapping conditions were going to be excluded. Informed consent shall be taken from parents and respective authorities of school. Base line scores using OHI-S ,Plaque score,DMFT indexes shall be taken first and oral prophylaxis shall be done to make the score 0. Braille tool shall be given to test group. Audio aids and tooth models will be given to control group. Then review shall be done after 1 and 3 months shall be done to check the effectiveness of Braille tool for visually impaired children.