MedEdPORTAL (Jan 2013)
Emergency Management of Dental Traumas: Avulsions
Abstract
Abstract Introduction One of the most common oral injuries that occur in the child or adolescent involves the avulsed tooth. There has been an increase in the numbers of these injuries worldwide due to sports activities and some of the newer recreational activities (i.e., skate-boarding, trampoline jumping, etc.). Worldwide there are 5.8 million cases of trauma per year where male patients are two-thirds of the victims. Although this is a common problem for all types of dental practices, many injuries occur after hours or on weekends when most dental practices are closed. Therefore many cases present to the emergency room, where there are no dental staff present. It is incumbent on the medical staff to have an understanding on how to diagnose dental injuries, manage them, and make the appropriate referral to a dental practitioner. This resource focuses on how to deal with avulsions. An avulsion of a tooth occurs when the tooth gets knocked out the socket. Typically this occurs to the central incisors, and the maxillary teeth are affected more than the mandibular teeth. Methods This resource incudes a PowerPoint, problem-based learning case, and video to teach the student/practitioner how to provide first-line management for stabilizing oral injuries, specifically the avulsed tooth, to the point of referral. Results The PowerPoint presentation was presented to a small sample of physicians. Feedback from this session indicated there was a lack of definitions for dental terminology/concepts that are not acquired in medical school training. Discussion This resource has been enhanced based on prior feedback and includes clinical photos and radiographs to help clarify terminology. This module is comprehensive but succinct. It is a novel interdisciplinary presentation of the topic based upon the most current treatment guidelines in publication and incorporates several modalities to optimize learning.
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