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Dental Disease Tragedy
More than anything, people remember Deamonte Driver’s smile. The 12-year-old Clinton, Maryland, boy would grin when he got to school, sometimes after working on cars with his granddad. He’d smile when he played football or made mischief with his classmates, even when he was nervous or scared. “He was just sunshine, and he would draw you in,” says Laurie Norris, an attorney with the Public Justice Center in Baltimore, who worked for months to help Deamonte’s mother, Alyce, find a dentist to treat her children.But Deamonte and his family had little to smile about in early January, when he was admitted to Southern Maryland Hospital Center with a severe headache. After two surgeries, doctors had diagnosed a brain infection and removed its source: an abscessed tooth. For weeks afterward, Deamonte seemed to be on the mend, working with physical and occupational therapists to regain full use of his right arm and leg, which the brain infection and surgery had impaired. But on February 25, the infection struck again. By the time Alyce Driver made it to the hospital early that morning, her son was gone.
“I don’t think anyone would have imagined that in 2007 we’d have children who would die of dental disease in the United States,” says Kathleen Roth, DDS, president of the American Dental Association. Deamonte had no obvious symptoms until the headache that sent him to the emergency room, but it’s clear he died in large part because he didn’t regularly see a dentist, who could have caught his tooth infection before it spread. Basic dental care would also have helped Deamonte’s ten-year-old brother, DaShawn, who needed six teeth pulled and suffered from painful, oozing sores that made his cheek swell.
At the time, Alyce Driver had five boys, no job (although she was training for construction work) and little money. When she got in touch with Norris, she had been trying for months to find a dentist who accepted Medicaid to treat her children.
While Deamonte’s tragic death is a rare case, dental disease in America is not. Untreated tooth decay in preschoolers has actually risen since the early 1990s, according to an April report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nine in ten Americans have tooth decay, and one in 20 middle-aged adults and one in four adults over 60 have no teeth at all.
There’s mounting evidence that your oral health affects your entire body. The millions of Americans with periodontal disease may have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, lung infections and preterm births. Recent studies have shown a link between periodontal disease and pancreatic cancer. And infected teeth and gums left untreated can lead to dangerous, even life-threatening infections of the neck, blood, lungs and brain, like the one Deamonte had.
It’s clear that “without oral health, you’re not healthy,” says Lawrence Tabak, DDS, director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.
Prevention is the cheapest and best way to avoid problems, of course. But luckily, improving your dental health improves your overall health too. Researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine this year that treating advanced gum disease lowered blood pressure, thereby reducing the risk of heart disease. And now a wave of technological innovation is making dental treatment safer, faster and more comfortable than ever before.
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