Oral Health and Systemic Diseases (Paperback)

Oral health care is an integral part of medical care. This is particularly apparent when patients seeking oral health care presents with systemic illness or disabilities. It is now most important for the safety of the patient and the success of the treatment for the dentist to identify patients with systemic illness. The incidence of dental patients with significant medical finding is surprisingly high. Identification of the medical conditions in these patients is critical. Inappropriate identification through improper history taking and interpretation can create ineffective or even detrimental oral health care treatment. A routine initial history taking and physical evaluation is essential for all dental patients because even apparently healthy patient may on evaluation be found to have historic or examination finding of sufficient significance to cause dentist to reevaluate the plan of treatment, modify a medication or even defer a particular treatment until additional diagnostic data is available.It has been said that - "Dentist are now concerned not with treatment of teeth in patients but treatment of patients who have teeth". (Morris, 1967)