By Tori Smith
MiQuel McRae sat in a dental hygiene room that was not like your typical dentist's office: the lights were dim, a calming fish and bubble machine danced in the corner, and the metal dental tools were placed behind the patient. In that room is where McRae made a connection with a patient: a 15-year-old boy that she was able to connect with by showing him pictures on her phone of her horses.
The room was located in New York University’s (NYU) Dentistry Oral Health Center for People With Disabilities. Located in Manhattan, the Center provides services like general dental care, orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, implant dentistry and more. The center provides special accommodations for patients such as a multi-sensory room, a wheelchair tilt, private treatment rooms and more.
With support through a partnership between the Burton Family Foundation (BFF), Delta Dental Foundation of Arizona, and BHHS Legacy Foundation, McRae was among a group of dental professionals from across Arizona who was able to travel to NYU to receive specialized training in caring for patients with disabilities. She said that immediately upon entering the health center, she was greeted with a calm atmosphere, and that she didn’t feel the chaos of the New York streets as soon as the elevator doors opened.
McRae’s biggest takeaway from the training was her new knowledge about the power of pressure, she said. She’s referring to proprioception, the concept of one’s body and its ability to sense its own positions and movements in space.
Because of her newfound knowledge and understanding, her plan is to purchase a handful of five and ten pound weighted blankets for her patients in order to make them more comfortable. The weight is small because so are her patients–McRae is a dental hygienist at a nonprofit organization that travels through Greenlee, Graham, and Maricopa counties for Tooth B.U.D.D.S, a school-based dental hygiene program.
She emphasized the need for providers to acknowledge the fact that every patient comes in with a different background, experience, and needs.
“We’re not patients, we’re people,” she said. “To treat anyone differently is a disservice.”
The weighted blankets that McRae is planning to get is just one way that providers can assist their patients who are neurodiverse or have a disability. There are many other ways that providers can support their patients.
The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research reported that individuals with developmental disabilities might experience varying degrees of mental capability, various challenges such as behavior, mobility, or neuromuscular challenges. An individual could experience uncontrollable body movements, have a cardiac disorder, experience visual impairment, seizures, latex allergies, and more.
For dentists, the Institute writes that providers may create a comfortable environment for patients by establishing a person-centered environment, determining their capabilities, setting the stage for a successful visit, asking if the patient is allergic to latex, and observing the patient's physical manifestations. Essentially, dental providers should ensure that everything is beneficial and comfortable for the patient.
That’s one of the things that Dr. Geoffrey Lines, a dentist at Sunset Health in Yuma, took away from the two-day training when he attended the training at NYU late last year. He said that he now asks more questions for an appointment with a patient, like if they want the lights dimmer, or if something is rewarding to the patient.
At Sunset Health, Dr. Lines said the dental office sees patients from six months old all the way to 100 years old. He said they see mostly lower-income families, and they have a few patients with disabilities. Sometimes the providers could help those individuals, but sometimes the patient's needs were beyond their training, which is why he said they applied for the grant to participate in the program.
Dr. Lines was able to observe the process of taking care of individuals with disabilities and pointed out that he noticed how the providers were giving patients more time to understand their needs.
Amanda Pinder, chief of dental services at El Rio Health in Tucson, was able to put a skill she learned from the training into play just a week after she learned about it: sensory integration. Sensory integration “refers to the processing, integration, and organization of sensory information from the body and the environment.” Pinder was able to work with a patient who was having difficulty in the chair and consider sensory integration as a part of her care process.
All three dental providers learned about this specialized training through the Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation, typically through Barb Kozuh, the foundation's executive director. The Delta Dental Foundation of Arizona is a nonprofit organization that aims to create a better path to health and wellness.
The two-and-half-day intensive was able to help dental providers gain knowledge, experience, and opportunities as they headed back to Arizona to care for the smiles of our local communities.
To learn more about the intensive visit dental.nyu.edu/patientcare/ohcpd/immersion-program