B. People with Disabilities
Society's Attitude toward
People with Disabilities:
Current Status
The numbers are dramatic, approximately
52 million Americans have some type of disabling condition such as cerebral
palsy, mental retardation, depression, spinal cord injury, visual impairment,
arthritis, and muscular dystrophy; to name a few.
As
health care has improved and many of the once acute and fatal conditions
become chronic and manageable problems, these patients have continued to
grow in number and seek care from private practitioners. Therefore,
dentists and other oral health care professionals have an increasing responsibility
to identify patients with systemic diseases, compromising conditions, and
disabilities that have an impact on, and can be impacted by, oral treatment. This is, more patients will require oral health care that is optimally
coordinated with the systemic conditions.
Some of the issues that affect
the daily lives of people with severe disabilities are:
-
community living: is there
housing available that accommodates their disabilities? is financial help
available?
-
transportation: is transportation
available? is it convenient? who will pay for it?
-
education: is special
education available? will it result in marketable job skills?
-
employment:
will employers hire a person with a disability? are employers
willing to make necessary accommodations? is reliable and affordable
transportation available?
-
health care: is medical
and dental treatment available in the community? does the public
health department provide care? is financial assistance available? is transportation available?
Historically, many of these "special
patients" received care in settings such as institutions, hospitals, infirmaries,
and nursing homes. Due to the substantial increase in the number
of individuals now living with unique special needs as well as society's
desire to remove physical and psychological barriers and stimulate health
care access, the trend is for these people to seek care from traditional
community-based private practitioners. However, people with disabilities
have experienced some difficulty accessing comprehensive oral health care
in the community. Several reasons for this have been identified:
-
reimbursement for dental services
is inadequate (e.g. Medicaid)
-
many dentists have not been trained
to treat patients with disabilities
-
some patients are uncooperative,
resistant during dental treatment
-
some dentists believe special
equipment is required to provide care
-
dentists are too busy with other
patients
The current situation requires
all of us to become competent in providing care to patients with a variety
of disabilities.
