Caring for an Elderly Parent With Special Dental Needs
Dental Care and Your Autistic Child
Joe Lawrence
If you have an autistic child, then you more than likely struggle when it comes to dental care. There are a lot of things about dental care that an autistic child may not feel comfortable or cooperative with. This short but helpful guide is a fantastic place for you to start with coming up with strategies and other ideas you can implement in your own routine that can make your child handle dental care easier.
Tooth brushing advice that can help
Autistic children tend to need repeated exposure to words in order for them to do better at learning vocabulary. You can turn their tooth brushing time into a vocabulary lesson that helps them learn more words. It also gives them something else to concentrate on, which may make the act of brushing their teeth easier. Each time you are helping your child care for their teeth, you want to repeat the words to them such as toothbrush, toothpaste, water, cup, sink, faucet, mouth, teeth, tongue, etc.
Getting your child to eat teeth friendly foods
Autistic children tend to have pretty limited diets, and they also have very strong likes and dislikes. Therefore, if your child doesn't like apples then you're going to have a very hard time getting them to eat the apples, even though they are good for their teeth.
You should gather a lot of different foods that are all good for their teeth and let them try the ones they want. Hopefully, you can at least get them to try most of them. Each time they find one they like, write it down on a list. This list can be incorporated into your regular shopping list so you know you are getting more teeth-friendly foods in them regularly.
Cut the amount of sugary foods your child consumes down as much as you can. If you are able to, try to find a different brand that looks, feels, and tastes the same but that has a lower sugar content. This may not always be possible, but when it is it can help reduce their cavity risks.
If your child won't go to bed without a sippy cup then you want to make the fluid as sugar free as possible. If they have a favorite juice they demand, slowly start to dilute it with water, adding a little bit more water and less juice every few days. Before you know it, they will hardly be getting any juice at all, and if you are completely successful, then it will only be water in the cup.
Finding a pediatric dentist, like South Shore Smiles, and talking to them about more tips for your child may be beneficial to creating a healthy dental home routine.
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Caring for an elderly parent tends to be tough enough without the added stress of dealing with dental implants or dentures. But, the prospect is not the end of the world—there are many things you can do to ensure that your parent's dental health is not compromised without having to spend a lot of personal time doing the care yourself. Between working with the right dentist, hiring a service provider for part time work, and giving your parent the tools he or she needs to care for his or her own dental health at home, you'll find that dental health for your loved one isn't so tough or time consuming after all. Hopefully you are able to get the support and information you need right here.