Dental Care and Treatment of Children with Emotional Disorders – An Overview

This article reports a dental management of children with emotional problems. The dental treatment difficulty is more often due to behavior disorders and is prone to tears or temper tantrums. A very important cause of uncooperation is fear of an unknown experience. These children are parent dependent and presence of parent during dental treatment is mandatory. Care must be taken of any casual remarks to the parent or assistant in front of child, the waiting room should have play objects, after one or two social visits treatment procedures can be introduced. They must be simple at first and are usually confined to the prophylactic polishing. The traditional method is to ask the patient to raise his hand if he wishes the dentist to pause. Toothpaste is produced and discussed as a familiar topic, dentist’s finger nail are then polished first, the parent’s and then finally child’s. From here it may be possible to polish the anterior teeth then followed by bur by introducing special small brush for posterior teeth, care should be taken to make no unexpected movements. Initially, simple restorations should be done followed by multiple restorations. If the child is not cooperative for the treatment, it has to be done under sedation. Along with dental causes and management have been also discussed.