Dangerous games

I recently gave a presentation at the Scottish Sports Dentistry Conference 2012, covering aspects of sports dentistry ranging from sporting injuries to performance mouthwear.

The title of my talk was 'Introduction to sports dentistry' and I looked at the prevalence of sporting injuries as far as the teeth are concerned, as well as basic treatment ideas and prevention of problems arising from sporting trauma. Quoting many papers, encompassing the very recent and those published up to 30 years ago, I talked about the prevalence of dental damage being sustained during sport. There is a significant amount of trauma to the head and neck involving the teeth and mouth. In the region of 20 per cent of head injuries involve the teeth and mouth.

I also talked about the various classifications of trauma and how to diagnose, manage and treat dental injuries. A large portion of the presentation looked at prevention, starting with early orthodontic intervention. If, for example, a child's teeth are very proclined, they are vulnerable to trauma. Often this is because they've been a thumb sucker. So you want to first encourage them to break the thumb sucking habit and then, through treatment, for example fixed or removable appliances, move the teeth back so that they're back behind the lower lip, which gives those otherwise vulnerable teeth a degree of protection.