Autists and the approach to dental care

Abstract

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is classified as a disorder that affects the patient's neurodevelopment and equalizes the incidences of deficits affecting the patient's quality of life and their interaction with the social environment, and also causes demands in dietary treatment which may increase the occurrence of caries and other negative effects on this patient's oral health. The objective is to analyze the approach taken in dental care aimed at patients with autism spectrum disorder, in order to highlight the main difficulties and forms of treatment that should be directed to these patients. The search for studies was carried out in the NCBI/PubMed (National Center for BiotechnologyInformation), SciELO (Scientific Electronic Lirary Online), Academic Google and Lilacs - Bireme (Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Sciences) databases. Health). To delimit the contents, inclusion criteria were used: articles available in full, in Portuguese, English and Spanish, published between the years 2019 to 2021 with free access and that were relevant to the topic. The autistic patient has the same oral characteristics as non-autistic patients, but due to the limitations of the disease and parental neglect, the oral cavity is more likely to suffer from tooth decay and other diseases. In this sense, the link between parents and dentists is very important to prevent oral health problems, as it is difficult for parents to carry out effective oral hygiene in their children with autism, and few professionals have received training. The dental surgeon must act as an intervener in the patient's oral health and establish a trusting relationship with the patient's parents, applying inclusive care approaches and promoting oral health.