My neighbor has suffered a traumatic brain injury. I help the family take care of them. They can only get in on the weekends. They buy her food and pay her bills and visit with her. I keep an eye out for her during the week by making her meals and taking her to doctor appointments. The kids take turns going over there to “chat” with her each day so she has some company. However, I noticed her teeth needed work and mentioned something to the family. I took her to the dentist and he said she needs her teeth extracted and to get dentures. The appointment was traumatic for her. If we get these extractions and dentures, we’ll need a different dentist. This one wasn’t patient. Is there a way to find a dentist for her?
Maggie
Dear Maggie,
It’s great that you’ve stepped up to help your neighbor and her family, as well as noticed her dental care was being neglected. Finding a doctor familiar with treating TBI is going to be essential for her. Sadly, there’s not an easy way to locate that.
What I’m going to suggest is you look for a practitioner who uses dental sedation, then ask them if they’ve worked successfully with patients like your neighbor. She’s going to need sedation anyway, so this will kill two birds with one stone.
I’m hesitant to go along with just extracting all her teeth and getting dentures. Before you do that, I’d like to strongly suggest she get a second opinion. There are dentists who will give free second opinions so all it will cost you is time. It’s well worth it though. Every tooth you can save is to her benefit.
Denture Options
If only a few of her teeth can be saved, it’s still worth it. She can get a denture like the one above. This leaves space for her remaining teeth. It’s called a Cu-Sil Partial, so talk to the dentist about that option.
However, if she’s going to lose all her teeth, given her brain injury, I think it’s important she has dentures which are anchored to her teeth. Ideally, she’d get implant overdentures, which combine dentures with dental implants.
They are a tad pricey so if money will be a huge problem, she can get snap on dentures. This only needs two implants instead of the six that you’d use with the overdentures. There’s a picture at the top of this post.
The key will be communication with a good dentist. Find that sedation dentist who can work with her and go from there.
Best of luck to you and your neighbor.
This blog is brought to you by Baton Rouge Dentist Dr. Steven Collins.