Headgear Safety
Once again there has been a report of serious eye injury from dislodged headgear appliances. This time, in the May Archives of Ophthalmology, Dr. Gary Holland reports injury to three eyes in two patients, with only one eye retaining useful vision after two years of medical and surgical therapy.
What a calamity for the two children, for their parents, for the orthodontist, for orthodontics. All will have to live with the results of these tragedies for the rest of their lives. If there is any good that may come from such an experience, it should be in the elimination of appliances that can cause these accidents from the armamentarium of every orthodontist.
All orthodontists ought to look upon each such unfortunate event as if it had happened in their own practices, thank their good fortune that it had not, and pledge to discard the appliances whose design permits these accidents to happen. There are now a half-dozen headgear appliances on the market with a variety of breakaway safety features that are aimed specifically at preventing eye damage.
Not only have we reached a point at which it is obvious that an orthodontist could be accused of negligence in using unsafe appliances when there are a number of safety devices on the market, but we owe it to our patients to do no harm, and to afford them the advantages of the latest technology. In addition, we can spare ourselves the nightmare of having deprived a young child of his or her vision.
