Dental injuries occur in a wide range of sports. While they can never be completely prevented, you often can minimize these injuries with proper use of a mouth guard.

In the case of a dental injury, treatment from a health care professional in a timely manner is vital to a successful outcome.

Let’s look at different types of dental injuries, as well as what you can do to help prevent and properly care for dental injuries and mouth guard tips.

Dental injuries can range from crown fractures, root fractures, subluxations and avulsions. A trained health care professional should determine the dental injuries and the immediate care plan. Some of these injuries are time-sensitive for successful outcomes.

If an adult tooth is avulsed (knocked out), the rate of successfully saving the tooth greatly declines after an hour. Having an athletic trainer present for your sporting event can aid in the timely care and referral of these dental injuries.

Several states mandate the use of mouth guards in sports such as football, hockey and wrestling. Although other sports may not require the use of mouth guards, wearing one can make you less likely to sustain an oral facial injury than participants who don’t wear them. Having on-site trained medical professionals, such as athletic trainers who are trained in taking care of sports-related dental injuries, is vital to successful outcomes. The athletic trainer can make decisions on return to play, severity of the dental injury and make decisions on when and whom to refer the athlete. The athletic trainer also can create a referral network of the appropriate medical professionals as part of the emergency action plan.

Clinicians, athletes, parents and coaches should learn the importance of wearing mouth guards, the classification used for different mouth guards and the state and national recommendations related to mouth guard use associated with various sport. Today, there are a variety of mouth guards available on the market.

Proper fit is key to the use of mouth guards, and the athlete’s comfort with a mouth guard is critical for compliance. If the athlete is complaining of bulkiness, stability, hardness, speaking difficulty or any other various complaints, the likelihood of use decreases significantly.

According to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association position statement, the recommended coverage areas are as follows:

• For high-contact sports, coverage should be to the back of the second molars.
• For low-contact sports, coverage should be to the back of the first molars.
• Recommended thickness of the mouth guard is 2 to 3 millimeters on the cheek and lip sides, 3 millimeters on the biting surface and 2 millimeters on the side of the roof of the mouth.

 If you have any questions regarding the appropriate type of mouth guard for your athlete, talk with an athletic trainer or dentist.

Dental and oral injuries are a common occurrence in sports. Education of athletes, coaches, and parents on dental injuries, appropriate medical coverage and referral, and proper mouth guard wear is vital to the prevention and successful outcomes of sport-related dental and oral injuries.

Information in the blog was gathered from the National Athletic Training Association position statement: Preventing and Managing Sport-Related Dental and Oral Injuries. For more information on this topic please visit www.NATA.org.

Kellen Norris enters his fourth season with the Indianapolis Colts as a full-time assistant athletic trainer. Norris started with the team as a summer intern from 2007-09 before working as a seasonal intern from 2011-12. He then worked as an assistant athletic trainer for the Indiana State University football team in 2013. Norris will serve his first year on the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society USA Football Committee Chair in 2016. He earned a bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Indiana State in 2009 and a master’s degree in athletic training from West Virginia University in 2011.