The prevention of orofacial sports injuries in the adolescent.

Custom-made mouthguards are effective in reducing orofacial injuries to junior players. A significant reduction or total elimination of these injuries can be expected when mouthguards are used. An acceptable custom-made mouthguard can be constructed for every adolescent; therefore, they can and should be used in contact sport at junior level. This will help young people to become accustomed to these protective devices at an early age. It is important that first mouthguards are comfortable and that adaptations are done whenever needed to ensure that the recipients will want to continue to use these devices. Sports bodies and coaches should do more to enforce the use of mouthguards at all levels. The high incidence of injuries to the oral region makes their use essential. The time has now come for the use of mouthguards to be made compulsory by contact sports authorities, first, for all senior teams, and subsequently for high school and even primary school pupils. Most parents and many dentists are still unaware of injury hazards and (more importantly) the protection available. A team dentist, where there is a possibility of dental injury, is the ideal situation. One dentist can easily be the team dentist for a number of teams, acting as professional adviser, fitting and adjusting mouthguards and ensuring that trauma (or dental disease) is treated by the player's own dentist.