Program Notes: August 2024: Oral Health

Posted on Posted in Program Notes

Last updated on August 28, 2024.

Aug
22
August 2024: Oral Health and PD (Zoom)

Trish Rule is the Executive Director of the New Mexico Dental Association Foundation.  She has been with the organization since 2009.  Her unique organizational and program management skillset provides the Foundation with an excellent match for the large charitable outreach events provided across the state. 

Leslie Favela is a Program Coordinator at the Foundation, where she has been a team member since November of last year. With a BA in Population Health and currently pursuing an MS in Project Management, Leslie is uniquely equipped to contribute to healthcare projects. Her educational background and hands-on experience enable her to bridge these two fields, aiming to create impactful solutions and better support her community. 

Trish Rule and Leslie Favela of the New Mexico Dental Association Foundation joined the group talk about access to oral health providers in New Mexico to talk about experiences with dental care and Parkinson’s Disease (and others with special needs or need accommodations, like assistance with transportation). They would appreciate as many participants as possible that can complete their survey, which is still open to access. Trish and Leslie are also querying providers in New Mexico and city and state government offices about resources available to improve accessibility to dental care for those with issues related to special needs/accessibility.

As accommodation needs increase, dental care often becomes neglected and access to care decrease significantly. Trish and Leslie hope to present these issues to legislators along with recommendations about how to improve access to dental care.

Here’s a link to their survey in case you’ve not provided your response!

Question posed by Trish and Leslie: Have participants been given any resources by their providers/organizations/agencies about how to access dental care?

Participant response, overall, was “no.” Medicare/Medicaid does not have good coverage of dental care. Few resources/information are available through insurance providers since there is often only limited provision of oral care.

Constant communication and education is needed about dental care from agencies and providers about oral health and PD, which participants felt is currently lacking across all areas of support. Participants also feel that dentists need to be educated about oral issues related to PD; this is not necessarily limited to PD-related issues, as additional interdisciplinary expertise is needed across all medical disciplines.

The general discussion included:

  • Excessive drooling and dry mouth can cause extensive dental damage,
  • Carbidopa/Levodopa can raise the pH of saliva, causing dental decay. The recommendation (from one member’s dentist) is to increase fluoride use to help combat these issues. (As always, be sure to consult with your dentist for their recommendation!), and
  • Providers need to be aware of potential interactions of anesthesia and other dental-treatments with PD-related medications.

Question posed by Trish and Leslie: What are barriers to accessing dental care?

The general discussion included:

  • transportation issues,
  • not being able to keep mouth open for an extended period of time,
  • needing to swallow during procedures but not having a way to indicate this to the provider,
  • not having ADA accessible spaces (i.e. not being able to get a wheelchair into an exam room or not having help to transfer into the dental chair).

On the provider side:

  • barriers to providing specialized services include poor reimbursement,
  • not taking Medicaid (due to paperwork/reimbursement issues),
  • not having staff trained to meet the needs of patients, and
  • not having equipment to meet the needs of patients.

Overall, the group emphasized the need for more education about dental care and PD for both patients and providers.

During the course of the hour, several useful web resources were identified:

Finally, we noted that vision changes and PD would be a good future topic for the group.