Posted on May 16, 2001 at 1:00 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Special Olympics athletes will be showing off their special smiles this weekend thanks to volunteer dental students from the UAB School of Dentistry.
More than 50 volunteer students will participate in the Special Smiles program during Special Olympics weekend, May 18-20, at Auburn University. The Special Smiles program is a component of Special Olympics Inc.'s "Healthy Athletes" initiative, created to focus attention on the overall health issues facing Special Olympics athletes. The Special Smiles portion of Special Olympics will take place Saturday in the lobby of the basketball coliseum at AU.
Special Olympics is an international program of year-round sports training and athletic competition for more than one million children and adults with mental retardation. Special Smiles is a dental screening, education and referral program designed to increase access to oral care for all people with mental retardation, and particularly those who are competing as Special Olympics athletes.
At the event, the dental students will provide a non-invasive dental screening, dental hygiene education and a goody bag that contains a toothbrush and toothpaste, a "report card" on the athlete's oral health and a referral list of dental facilities where care is provided for people with disabilities. The dental students will also provide free mouthguards for athletes competing in contact or high-risk sports.
"The biggest goal of this project is to increase access to care by providing the athletes with the list of dentists in their areas that treat patients with special needs," said Dr. Maureen Pezzementi, DMD, UAB School of Dentistry assistant professor and faculty adviser for the volunteer program.
"This kind of interaction does a lot to reduce the fears that our students and even other volunteer practitioners may have about dealing with the special needs of the mentally retarded. And of course we certainly hope the experience carries over, and that the students take it with them as they venture out into the world of private practice," she said.
Data is also collected at Special Smiles programs from around the world, and Pezzementi said in Alabama, Special Olympics athletes are 2 1/2 times more likely to have urgent care needs, such as pain in the mouth, decay, possibly even to the pulp, and/or broken or missing fillings with decay.
The data is sent to the University of Maryland for compilation and analysis so that an assessment of the oral health of a representative sample of Special Olympics athletes from around the world can be generated. The data is then used to lobby the federal, state and local governments for better access to oral health providers.