This article reports on a case history of an elderly patient with Parkinson's disease (PD) who sought treatment at a private dental office. His chief complaint was "difficulty in eating due to an illfitting prosthesis." Laboratory tests and oral radiographs were made. The surgical placement of an implant was done and, subsequently, an implant-supported prosthesis was fitted for the patient. During the impression for the construction of the implant-supported prosthesis, the patient accidentally aspirated the implant screwdriver. The object was found in the lower right lobe of the bronchus, and its removal was necessary in a hospital using bronchoscopy under general anesthesia. Patients with PD are considered at risk of aspirating and/or ingesting dental instruments. Short treatment periods are recommended, preferably during the morning, when the medication prescribed for PD is most effective. When treating patients who have a risk for aspirating and ingesting small objects, it is important to treat them in a more vertical position, and small-sized objects should be secured with dental floss to aid retrieval.

This study sought to validate the Portuguese translation of a questionnaire on maltreatment of children and adolescents, developed by Russell et al. and to test its psychometric properties for use in Brazil. The original questionnaire was translated into Portuguese using a standardized forward-backward linguistic translation method. Both face and content validity were tested in a small pilot study (n = 8). In the main study, a convenience sample of 80 graduate dentistry students with different specialties, from Curitiba, PR, Brazil, were invited to complete the final Brazilian version of the questionnaire. Discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the results obtained from the questionnaire for different specialties (pediatric dentistry, for example). The respondents completed the questionnaire again after 4 weeks to evaluate test-retest reliability. The comparison of test versus retest questionnaire answers showed good agreement (kappa > 0.53, intraclass correlation > 0.84) for most questions. In regard to discriminant validity, a statistically significant difference was observed only in the experience and interest domains, in which pediatric dentists showed more experience with and interest in child abuse compared with dentists of other specialties (Mann-Whitney test, p < 0.05). The Brazilian version of the questionnaire was valid and reliable for assessing knowledge regarding child abuse by Portuguesespeaking dentists.

In Brazil, dentists have a legal, moral, and ethical obligation to notify competent authorities of suspected cases of maltreatment. Studies conducted in several countries reported the difficulties of dentists in the diagnosis, documentation, and reporting of suspected abuse cases to authorities. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the perception, diagnosis and attitudes of Brazilian endodontists towards child abuse. Material and methods:Data were collected from 56 questionnaires, considering a total of 248 sent by mail (response rate = 23%) to the endodontists (female = 73%). Results: Forty-one percent (n = 23) of the professionals answered that they were able to identify cases of abuse, while 59% (n = 33) answered that they were unable. Considering their graduation years, 93% (n = 52) stated that they had received little information on this issue, and only 5% (n = 3) attended seminars on this subject during the year before the questionnaire’s application. Although 61% (n = 34) of the professionals affirmed that suspicious cases must be reported, only 30% (n = 17) knew to whom. Eighteen percent (n = 10) of the endodontists reported they had alreadytreated suspicious cases, although only 3.5% (n = 2) reported the case to the authorities. The most cited signs of abuse were: bodybruises (48%; n = 27), change in behavior (48%; n = 27) and burn marks (12.5%; n = 7). Lesions presented in the face, mouth, and teeth were reported by 27% (n = 15) of the professionals. There were no statistically differences regarding the number of notifications in relation to either the number of years since graduation or the workplace. Conclusion: It was concluded that it is necessary to improve endodontists’ formation concerning to child abuse identification, in order to modify their behavior, therefore, increasing the number of suspicious cases’ notifications.