A method of planning a dental treatment program for an institutionalized population

A dental treatment program, for a subnormal group in an institution near London, England, was designed by applying both epidemiologic data and empirically derived data from the Experimental Dental Care Project at The London Hospital Dental School. For the epidemiologic study, a two-examiner system was developed to help overcome the special problems of examining subnormal adults. The data collected in the study had to be flexible enough to allow the analysis of several alternative treatment strategies. Once these alternative treatment strategies were defined, the data from the Experimental Dental Care Project were applied to analyze the effects of using dental teams of varying composition to carry out the treatment. It was found that to meet the dental needs of the group, a team consisting of one dentist, three New Cross auxiliaries and one dental surgery assistant would be 30% less expensive than a traditional team of one dentist and one assistant. This larger team would also be able to complete the necessary initial treatment in less than half the time that the traditional team would require.