HEALTH Canton clinic opens wide for disabled Dental program for developmentally challenged patients marks 40 years

Four decades after a court order prompted the state government to partner with Tufts University to provide dental care to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a network of clinics continues that mission across Massachusetts - including one in Canton.

“To provide care to a group of patients who arguably would not get care in other settings is powerful,” said Huw Thomas, dean of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. “The support for this program has really come down to doing the right thing.”

Patients with special needs, program administrators and clinicians said, often face challenges maintaining healthy oral health practices and accessing care in traditional settings. At Tufts Dental Facilities clinics, staff are specially trained to work with those patients and make them comfortable. Clinicians support patients who require advanced behavioral or anxiety measures, such as sedation or general anesthesia during dental treatment.

While a traditional dentist’s office may not let a patient get up mid-exam to relieve stress by taking a walk outside, those sorts of accommodations are often embraced at Tufts Dental Facilities, clinicians said.

The clinics are located in Canton, Taunton, Wrentham, Hathorne, Groton, West Springfield and Worcester. Additionally, Tufts treats patients with special needs at its clinic in Boston’s Chinatown. The clinics provided care to 7,700 patients last year in more than 26,000 visits.

After a series of lawsuits were filed against the forerunner to the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services during the 1970s, a court ordered the state to improve health and clinical dental care at the seven state-run schools for the developmentally disabled.

“The state put out a bid for providers to enter a contractual arrangement to provide care,” said Dr. Joel Pearlman, who’s been a clinician at the program’s Wrentham clinic since 1976. “Tufts put in a bid, then Tufts came in and set up a program that eventually resulted in clinics at all these sites.”

Department of Developmental Services Commissioner Elin M. Howe said the partnership has “assured that some of the most vulnerable members of the commonwealth can remain healthy, active and integrated in the community.”

“Where other dentists have often been hesitant to serve this population, you’ve embraced this population of people with skill, grace and compassion,” Howe told a group of Tufts Dental Facility administrators and clinicians during a recent luncheon in Wrentham.

A handful of legislators were recognized at the luncheon for their support of the partnership. State Rep. Denise Garlick, D-Needham, said her experience as a registered nurse and the mother of a child with developmental disabilities, gives her a unique perspective.

“This program is absolutely critical to a population who may well be sick because of a dental issue, who may be in pain because of a dental issue and who may be unable to articulate that,” Garlick said. “A program like this allows people to be served with dignity and a sense of the importance of their health and their worth as human beings, and not to be left suffering with an issue that can be prevented.”

Tufts dental students complete one-week rotations at Tufts Dental Facility clinics and may also participate in five-week externships. One of the goals, Thomas said, is to encourage young dentists to be open to working with patients who have special needs.

That exposure is how Dr. Darren Dragg, the Tufts Dental Facilities director of clinical operations, got his start. While a student in 1999, Dragg found himself in an externship at the program’s Taunton clinic, where he continues to work today. He called that time “the best five weeks” of dental school.

“It truly happened by accident,” he said. “I never worked with an individual with special needs before, so there was uncertainty on my part, but those five weeks really changed my outlook on a lot of things. It opened my eyes.”

Thomas said Tufts Dental Facilities are the only network of dental clinics in the country dedicated to serving patients with special needs. He hopes the partnership can be an example for other states.

“The sum is really greater than the individual parts,” he said. “We truly have a national model.”