A Pattern of Dental Treatment and Oral Rehabilitation for Adult Individuals With Intellectual Disability in General Anaesthesia

Oral diseases are not life threatening and dental procedures usually do not pose significant risk to a patient. In situation where a patient does not tolerate dental treatment, and consequently general anaethesia (GA) is used, an intellectually disabled (ID) patient with a condition that is routinely managed in the general population is exposed to significantly higher medical risk. Quality of oral health care delivery for adults with ID is considered inadequate and in need of constant improvement. Therefore, the present study aims to analyse the type of dental treatment performed in GA and factors affecting the treatment. By its design this is an observational, epidemiological, retrospective study. A representative sample of the target population is realised by the assessment of approximately n=250 ID adults treated at the Dental Clinic of Vojvodina. A number of parameters such as severity of ID, the presence of concomitant conditions, living arrangements, medical diagnoses, physical status according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists' classification (ASA score), history of previous surgical/GA treatments and injuries/trauma, frequency of dental visits, procedures that were conducted in GA and during routine dental treatment (RDT), dental status including DMFT (decay, missed, filled teeth index) and total number of extracted teeth and data about oral rehabilitation.The use of GA emphasizes the inequalities in persons with ID, since it is always more radical compared to RDT. It is a frequent occurrence that with the use of GA only prevention of complications and pain relief are accomplished, resulting in a multiple teeth extractions. This approach inevitably leads to further dysfunctions in cranio-facial system, affecting all aspects of everyday life in persons with ID.