EDUCATION
Dental trauma in contact sports No matter how old you are, sport is an indispensable part of everyone’s life. Injuries occur not only to the body, but also to the oral cavity - to the teeth, and they need special protection.
Danica Izgarević, Montenegro
C
ontact sports are one of the most common aetiological factors for dental trauma. Such sports are defined as those in which there is direct interaction between participants, with physical methods permitted to stop or tackle the opposing player or team (Dorney, 1998). Epidemiological studies indicate the annual inci-
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dence of dental trauma globally is at about 4.5%. Approximately one third of children and toddlers (primary teeth) and one fifth of adolescents and adults (permanent teeth) sustained a traumatic dental injury. Greater than 5 million teeth are avulsed in the United States every year, accruing nearly $500 million in cost of care
(Pope, 2016). With understandably heightened media attention and professional concern regarding the long-term consequences of repeated concussive head trauma in contact sports, including its increasingly conclusive link with Alzheimer’s and other early-onset degenerative brain diseases, dental trauma in contact sports is also a
