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Review
. 2014 Jul;6(4):104-7.

Guarding the precious smile: incidence and prevention of injury in sports: a review

Bikramjit Singh Dhillon  1 , Nikhil Sood  2 , Niti Sood  2 , Nupur Sah  3 , Dhruv Arora  1 , Ashish Mahendra  4
Affiliations
Review

Guarding the precious smile: incidence and prevention of injury in sports: a review

Bikramjit Singh Dhillon et al. J Int Oral Health. 2014 Jul.

Abstract

The paper provides a review about the orofacial injuries sustained during sports and the options available to the athletes for their prevention. It was done with a purpose to determine three different aspects incidence of dental injury during sporting activities, role of mouthguards in preventing sports injury, types of mouthguards and their properties. From this review, it is clear that sports carry a considerable risk of injury, this is not only true for the contact sports such as rugby or kickboxing, but also for seemingly less dangerous sports such as football. Amongst the different types of mouthguards, the most acceptable and safe ones are the custom-fabricated mouthguards, in particular the pressure-laminated ones. In general, mouthguard usage is less than the dental profession would recommend. As much of progress has been made in this area, need for the use of mouthguard needs to be emphasized and promoted by the dental profession.

Keywords: Contact sports; mouthguard; sports injury.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Dental injury sustained due to kickboxing.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Stock mouth guard.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mouth-formed “boil-and-bite” mouth guards.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Custom made mouth guard fabricated on a model.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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