Oral health conditions and Pathophysiological alterations  of children with disabilities

The regionalized knowledge of the epidemiological situation of dental disease in populations is essential when it is planning to performe an effective attention, focused on the prevention of oral diseases. This clinical and epidemiological descriptive study   was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Public Health  School / SES - MT (No. 441/09). Objective: it was evaluated the prevalence of pathophysiological alterations of the maxillomandibular complex in pediatric patients (aged 0 to 5 years ) with disabilities attending in a  Specialized  Dental Care Center of the Mato Grosso state. Methods: the epidemiological profile of these  alterations  was performed by clinical examination  and evaluation of  the intraoral variables obtained  through a  structured questionnaire, previously validated  and applied to caregivers. Results: from a total of 102 children assisted in 2010, 67% of them were older than 3 years, 54%  male and 46% female. Regarding the education level and family income of the caregiver, 40% of them had completed high school and 60% of the family income were between one and two minimum wages. It was observed that  87% of these studied children had oral pathological alterations and 53% had  oral  physiological alterations.  The most prevalent  pathophysiological alterations  observed were:   caries (61%), periodontal disease (47%) and enamel  hypoplasia (6%).  Among the  physiological alterations, a coated tongue (37%),  melanin pigmentation (14%) and geographic tongue (10%) were the most frequent. In these children, 46% of them had caries activity  requiring restorative treatment and  65% showed  complete primary dentition. The DMFT index of children under 3 years was 0.88 and  children with 3  to 5 years old, the  DMFT was 4.42.  Conclusion: dental caries and periodontal disease was the  two  most prevalent   oral pathophysiological alterations observed in these children which coincides with  the main oral alterations found in the Brazilian population.