Introduction:

Cerebral palsy involves loss or impairment of motor function attributed to non-progressive disturbances occurring in the developing fetal or infant brain. Self-inflicted oral trauma is a recurrent parafunctional habit in individuals with cerebral palsy.

Objective:

Describe two treatment modes for self-inflicted oral trauma in a 6-year-old male patient with cerebral palsy over a 5-year follow-up period.

Case presentation:

The child had been having pain due to injuries to the mouth floor and lingual frenum regions. Initially, low-level laser therapy was applied to accelerate the healing process of the wounds. Five years later, the child started to present worse oral injuries and placement of a fixed oral appliance was proposed. Intraoral examination showed that the wounds had healed completely in response to the oral appliance.

Conclusions:

Different therapies may be useful to control the recurrence of self-inflicted oral injuries.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in English     · English ( pdf )