Search for tag: "u0977799"

Interviewer: If you've ever had any questions about baby teeth, are they important? Is it okay if a child has a baby tooth knocked out? Is it a big deal or not? What about when you can start brushing? We're going to cover baby teeth next on The Scope.

Announcer: Medical news and research from University Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope.

Interviewer: Dr. James Bekker is with University of Utah's School of Dentistry and he's going to give us some tips and information on baby teeth because you get a lot of questions about baby teeth. First of all, are baby teeth important or are they just that first set of teeth and I don't have to worry about them too much?

Dr. Bekker: Yes. Thanks for the question. That's a good one and we do get that a lot. Parents will often ask or say, "Gee. Why do I need to take care of these baby teeth? Why do I need to go through the expense or the experience of getting them taken care of?"

Interviewer: Or even the hassle of getting your kid to brush, right?

Dr. Bekker: Exactly. Baby teeth are very important because they are connected to where the permanent tooth is developing. So if you have a tooth that gets a cavity and gets infected, that infection can go from where it is in the baby tooth and into the jaw around where the permanent tooth is developing. Permanent teeth can be affected by baby teeth that are neglected.

Now if you lost a baby tooth, that brings up the other reason they're important is they hold space. If you lose a baby tooth early, it's like having bricks in an archway. If you pull out a brick in an arch, all the other bricks fall into that hole. Same thing happens with teeth. Everything else shifts and then your permanent teeth don't come in the right place.

So if you lose a tooth early it's important to hold the space and to maintain that space for the permanent tooth. It's also important to know that you're still losing baby molars when you're 12 years old. You've got some permanent teeth in your mouth when you have baby teeth in your mouth and that caries process or cavities process that happens with baby teeth really can affect the permanent teeth that you have.

Interviewer: So if you get a cavity in the baby tooth, is the effect on the permanent tooth underneath even more drastic than if I'd just got a cavity, like an adult got a cavity in a regular tooth? Does that make sense? Does it go beyond just the cavity in that situation?

Dr. Bekker: It depends on how far that cavity is allowed to go. If you just get a small cavity in a baby tooth and it gets fixed then there's probably no repercussions on the permanent tooth. But if that cavity is allowed to go on to get into the nerve, have the nerve become infected, and that infection travel down through the roots to where the permanent tooth is, it can have an effect on the permanent tooth development.

Interviewer: When should a child go to the dentist for the first time? You're talking about how important it is to take care of these baby teeth. When should you really start being concerned?

Dr. Bekker: We like to have children at the dentist at about a year of age.

Interviewer: Really?

Dr. Bekker: Yes.

Interviewer: That's much younger than I would . . . do most people find that to be younger than they expected?

Dr. Bekker: The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dental Association have collaborated on a number of studies and it is shown that if we get in early, you do some prevention of caries with the children. But the key point is you're educating the parents. I have so many children that come in at age three and they have a mouth full of cavities. If we were able to see that child at age one and do a little prevention, cleanings and fluoride treatments, that kind of thing, and educate the parents as to how to take care of those teeth, we could probably prevent a lot of those cavities that we see at three or at five.

Interviewer: Yeah. When should a child a start brushing his teeth? Or when should a parent start brushing a child's teeth? At one?

Dr. Bekker: Yes. As soon as...

Interviewer: When that first tooth comes in, start taking care of it.

Dr. Bekker: That's exactly it. Typically the first teeth are going to come in on the lower arch, the mandible, at around six months. Of course, the little kids aren't going to want to brush their teeth at that age. But we show parents how to hold them in a safe way that allows the parent to be able to brush the teeth while they're holding the child and how to effectively help that child get used to brushing, the taste of the toothpaste, and having the brush in their mouth. It's a process. Parents say, "How old should a child be when I let them brush their teeth on their own?" And I say, "About nine."

Interviewer: Up to that point it is the parent's responsibility.

Dr. Bekker: A lot of times, we say, "Have your child brush their own teeth and then mom or dad just check." And we say "check" with big quotation marks around them. You take that brush and you get in there and you go, "Oh, you did a great job on these. And, oh these over here you did a really good job." Mom and dad check the teeth and in checking they get in and get them really brushed done.

Interviewer: Getting a little brushing done. All the way to nine, huh?

Dr. Bekker: Well, thereabouts.

Announcer: That seems like a long time.

Dr. Bekker: Somewhere along in there, when the child can really understand how to effectively brush and floss.

Interviewer: Got you. Give us one great tip to end this interview. If somebody were going to do something for their child's teeth and do it well, if there was only one thing you could tell them and that's all the time you had, what would it be?

Dr. Bekker: Just take care of the ones you want to keep.

Announcer: TheScopeRadio.com is University of Utah Health Science's radio. If you like what you heard, be sure to get our latest content by following us on Facebook. Just click on the Facebook icon at TheScopeRadio.com.

Interviewer: Making dental visits easier for children with autism. We'll examine that next on The Scope.

Announcer: Medical news and research from University of Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope.

Interviewer: It can be stressful enough going to the dentist in the best of circumstances, but for children with autism, the sights and the sound sand the smells can speak overwhelming. Dr. James Bekker is with University of Utah School of Dentistry and he's going to give us some tips to make it an easier experience. So first of all is it pretty common for reactions to be pretty extreme or is the range pretty broad?

Dr. Bekker: There is a broad range, but every child with autism is different. There's such a spectrum and for parents that deal with this on a regular basis they know that there child has very specific things that they respond to and a positive way and in a negative way. So coming to the dentist can be made so much easier if the dentist beforehand can identify what makes the child happy and what scares the child.

Interviewer: So a conversation with the parents sounds like it's a good idea.

Dr. Bekker: Right.

Interviewer: Tell your dentist those things.

Dr. Bekker: Right. So we have a packet that parents can fill out ahead of time where we'll talk about their child that we talked about their likes, their dislikes, the triggers what makes them anxious, what is their happy place, what makes them comply with what you need to do as a physician or a doctor. You do that ahead of time and find out a little bit more about the child so when the child comes to your office you have already set up the situation that the things that make that child respond in a positive way or there.

I've had a child that love vacuuming, I've had a child that love playing with water, whatever it is that they like, you key in on that and then when they come in you are right on their level, you are relate into them, you know who they are, you know what they like and you take away some of that strangeness and some of that fear right off the bat. That makes the child much more comfortable but it really makes the parents more comfortable.

Interviewer: Yeah. There's probably nothing worst than bringing your child to the dentist and then having them scream or react negatively like that.

Dr. Bekker: Right, and if the parents sees that you kind of know what you're doing, that you've been down this road before with other children and you're keying in on what is good for their child it really helps them relax. You also schedule in your office at a time when . . . Parents are sometimes nervous about, if I bring my child to this office are the other children going to look, are they going to be afraid of my child, will my child have a negative interaction in the waiting room? And if you schedule it so that that waiting situation or that reception goes smoothly and you're prepared for the child ahead of time.

Maybe you don't have other patients scheduled at that time and you can focus just on that one child. You get them in, you get treatment and analysis and diagnosis done quickly and then they can be on their way. You don't have the anxiety of sitting and waiting in an office.

Interviewer: Yeah, sure. So those are couple of really good ideas of what a parent can communicate to a dentist, let them know that they have an autistic child and could you do these things. What are some other things a parent could do before that visit to maybe. . . Is there anyway you can prepare a child with autism for that by talking to them?

Dr. Bekker: Yes, and some of the things that apply to all children will apply specifically to children with autism. If a child picks up that a parent is really nervous about a situation, then the child will be more nervous. If the parent can be relax about the situation, the child is more relaxed. The parent can use terms that are positive terms. They can talk along the lines of this will be fun, this will be easy, this will be quick, he's really nice, or she's my friend. Those kinds of positive terms about the experience are really helpful ahead of time.

If the parent is saying things like he won't hurt you, I won't let her take you away, then the child's anxiousness is elevated. And every child is that way.

Interviewer: Yeah. Interesting. So is there something that a parent with an autistic child should look for when choosing a dentist?

Dr. Bekker: You need to have someone who has experience. You can go on their website and for the most part you may want to try and find a pediatric dentist and that's a specialty in dentistry where they go two extra years and do a residency in pediatric dentistry and they are more attune to the needs of special needs children. There are many general dentists in the community that have experience with special needs, but you need to do a little bit more homework to find out who those are.

Interviewer: Yeah. What are some of the things that you're doing here at the University of Utah School of Dentistry because this is a brand new facility. I understand you have some rooms that are kind of specially built for this. Explain that a little bit.

Dr. Bekker: We do. We have some areas that are child friendly, we have a special waiting room and I guess we don't call them waiting rooms, we call them reception rooms because we hope that nobody ever has to wait. We have this special reception area, we have a special clinic for pediatric patients and patients with special needs where we have TV monitors on the ceiling and you have all different kinds of movies or Discovery Channel, whatever the child likes to watch available. We found that the TV is one of the best anesthetics that we have.

Interviewer: Is it really. It works for most.

Dr. Bekker: It works for most and we also have treatment areas that are completely private so that the child and the parents can be somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of the other parts of the clinic.

Interviewer: That will probably helps a lot to cut down on a lot of that input.

Dr. Bekker: It does, especially with children in the autism spectrum, noises are big issue. And things that they don't understand that makes scary noises can really set them off. So if you can have a quiet or calmer place it really helps.

Interviewer: So that's really got a help with all that external stimulation that can be troublesome sometimes with autistic individuals.

Dr. Bekker: It really does.

Interviewer: What about smells and lighting, do those types of things cause problems generally or not so often?

Dr. Bekker: Smells do to some degree but lighting especially does with children in the autism spectrum. We can have the room darkened. In the new technology a lot of what we do in our diagnosis treatment planning and actual treatment, is with magnifying scopes that have an LED light right on them and it just zooms in on the area of treatment and the whole rest of the room can be darkened.

Interviewer: So any final thoughts or final tips for a parent with an autistic child that would help them through this experience?

Dr. Bekker: I think the most important thing is don't be afraid. Find a good pediatric dentist, find a good situation that is ready for your child because it can be a great experience. I've been doing this for many years and I have children with autism that love to come to the dentist. I have children with autism that don't particularly like it, but they do it and that's really important. Having that good oral health piece is so much more important than staying away just because you're afraid of the situation.

Announcer: TheScopeRadio.com is University of Utah Health Sciences radio. If you like what you heard, be sure to get our latest content by following us on Facebook. Just click on the Facebook icon at TheScopeRadio.com.