Each June, dental students and faculty from the UConn School of Dental Medicine volunteer to run the Special Smiles clinic for the Summer Games of the Special Olympics Connecticut. UConn has been providing these free oral health screenings and preventive services for the sporting event for more than 20 years.
This year Special Olympics Connecticut was held from June 10-12 at Southern Connecticut State University where 29 dental students, seven faculty, one dental resident, and ten more volunteers screened 272 athletes.
The dental student volunteers provide care under the supervision of faculty volunteers. They provide dental examinations, give personal oral hygiene instruction, fabricate sport mouth guards to help prevent dental trauma to athletes, and apply preventive fluoride varnish treatments.
“Special Smiles provides a unique opportunity for our students to interact with patients with special health care needs,” said longtime Special Smiles Volunteer Dr. Steven Lepowsky, senior associate dean for education and patient care and chair of the Division of General Dentistry. “Commitment to community service is a core competency for our students, and serving this population is a rewarding experience which can complement our students’ educational program.”
This year UConn Health volunteers helped identify 17 urgent dental care needs, delivered over 200 protective mouth guards, applied about 500 doses of professional fluoride varnish, and distributed nearly 300 packs of toothbrushes and toothpaste for the promotion of oral health.
“We have athletes who come back to visit us each year with a big smile ready to come see the dentists. That’s what makes this program so special,” said Dr. Deborah Redford-Badwal, associate professor of pediatric dentistry who has served as clinical director of Special Smiles for about a decade. “Working with children and adult patients with intellectual or developmental disabilities is a key component of pediatric dentistry as well as all of dentistry.”
While the focus of the event is providing preventive services, urgent needs are also identified at Special Smiles. Some athletes may be unaware that they may have a high burden of dental disease, and through this program the athletes and/or their caregivers learn about their oral health care needs. The screenings are conducted as part of the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes program which provides a wide range of free health screenings and care to bring enhanced fitness, nutrition, lifestyles, and health to all Special Olympians. Healthy Athletes provides more than 1.6 million free health examinations annually and offers seven areas of health promotion, including dentistry.
“This is a wonderful community service opportunity in which we provide care to children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities,” said Matthew Lepowsky, a third-year dental student and the student director of Special Smiles. “Both from the standpoint of giving back to the community and practicing our patient interaction skills, students can apply the clinical skills learned in school to this unique and under-served population.”
In addition, UConn School of Dental Medicine volunteers also participate with Special Smiles in providing free screenings at the Special Olympics Holiday Sports Classic held each November.
The Special Olympics is the world’s largest sports public health organization for more than 4.5 million people with intellectual disabilities. Through the power of sports, people with intellectual disabilities discover new strengths, abilities, skills and success.
