No abstract

Over recent years practitioners are increasingly being asked to attend to, or to provide treatment for, adult patients with some degree of mental illness, either in their homes or in the dental surgery. Demographic changes, an ageing population with increasing incidence of dementia, and the philosophy of 'care in the community' for those with long-term mental health problems will ensure that such requests will continue. Such requests present the practitioner with a number of ethical and legal problems. This series of papers looks at the legal issues that arise by reference to case scenarios in this area of 'special needs' dentistry. This first paper deals with the issue of consent, and the legal duty of care that arises on the part of the dentist when attending a patient who is unable to consent to treatment.

A n elderly couple, patients of a practice for many years, attend and ask the dentist to treat their 35-year-old son who has severe mental disability and is cared for at home. They think he is having toothache or perhaps earache; he is hitting the side of his head. The problem is made greater because he cannot communicate and will not let anyone approach him. No radiographs are possible.