Dealing with Dental Emergencies in the Emergency Room

Authors

Nayif Hussin Modahi, Fawaz Hussain Modahi, Abdullah Shadeed Al-Osaimi, Adel Mousa Alreshidi

Abstract

Emergency departments treat a broad range of conditions, including oral and dental conditions. Many of these may at first seem to fall outside the oral health domain, but what becomes clear is how entwined the conditions and their management are with the dental patient. Dental patients frequently attend the emergency department for a problem not related to a toothache or infection, for example, anxiety or a lost filling. However, a comprehensive assessment of their oral health status may reveal something different. The service would do well to remember that dentoalveolar fractures, oral soft tissue lacerations, and orofacial lacerations are included in the top ten ICD9 codes for procedures that are performed in the operating room. Craniofacial trauma and dental injuries are often seen in the polytrauma patient, and the management of these conditions can greatly influence the patient's recovery. The emergency department must consider how the expertise of a dentist may assist in managing these patients' conditions. This is partly what gave rise to wanting to obtain information regarding the protocols and experiences of other hospitals in dealing with dental emergencies in the ED. An unpublished survey was carried out in 2010 at the British Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BSDMFR) winter meeting. Of the people asked, all thought that dental emergency patients should not be handled by junior medical or maxillofacial staff, and 88% thought that it was not the role of medical staff to extract teeth. The implications that medical staff should not deal with dental emergency patients suggest that these patients should be referred to a dentist or a maxillofacial department. This survey is suggestive that in the mind of a surgeon, patients with dental emergencies should be managed by dental professionals. (Bhavsar, 2020)

Keywords

dental emergencies, emergency room, trauma, infection, toothache, management

Dealing with Dental Emergencies in the Emergency Room. Nayif Hussin Modahi, Fawaz Hussain Modahi, Abdullah Shadeed Al-Osaimi, Adel Mousa Alreshidi. 2022. IJIRCT, Volume 8, Issue 1. Pages 1-6. https://www.ijirct.org/viewPaper.php?paperId=2404075