Empowering Visually Impaired Individuals for Good Oral Health

• Published in: International dental journal 2024-10, Vol.74, p.S44-S44
• Main Author: Khurana, Charu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0020-6539
• DOI: 10.1016/j.identj.2024.07.703

Blindness is a serious and painful problem and only the blind can understand the pain. Visual impairment is a global issue, leading to various difficulties and significantly affecting patient's quality of life. Oral health maintenance and utilization of oral hygiene aids among blind population is significantly worse than in an equivalently sighted one. Braille text is a tactile writing method which enables them to learn and understand easily. An Oral Health Care Kit with braille embossing on essential Oral Hygiene aids (irrespective of any brand) was developed. A prospective nonrandomized before and after comparison trial without any control group was conducted among 165 children aged 7–19 years residing in one of the blind schools in Delhi. A semi-structured 20-item questionnaire in the Braille format was developed to record the source of oral health knowledge and practices. All the participating subjects’ ability was assessed to identify basic oral hygiene aids, skills to use it and information on oral healthcare products. The newly developed oral healthcare kit was distributed among them. Oral health status of the children was evaluated twice by recording plaque index (PI) and gingival index (GI) scores at 2 months intervals. The statistically significant (P