Importance of Dental Care

If you don't think that dental care is important, just ask the mother in this Washington Post story. Her twelve year old son died after bacteria from an abscess tooth spread to his brain. This is an extreme case, but illustrates the fact that we all need good dental care.

Good dental care has a significant impact on our overall well-being and productivity. Dental-related illnesses are estimate to result in 164 million lost work hours and 51 million lost school hours (per every 100,000 children) in the United States each year. Consider the impact preventive dental care has had:

• A 12% increase in regular oral check-ups coincided with a 52% decrease in the number of fillings between 1979 to 1990.
• The United States saves $4 billion on dental care each year through prevention, early detection and treatment.

While good dental care is important for everyone, it is even more important for people that have certain medical conditions such as diabetes, HIV, and other diseases. These conditions can increase the chance of certain oral infections, which could cause even more complications with their condition. For example an oral infection could be life threatening to someone with a compromised immune system resulting from HIV.