Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com only 8% of people have a congenital visual impairment with the rest developing a visual impairment through local or systemic disease, accidents or age-related degeneration. 2 Furthermore, a huge proportion of adults with a visual impairment relate to hearing problems which may require further help to the provision of dental care. 3 Some of the causes of visual impairment may be associated with other medical problems, such as cardiac defects or diabetes, which are more likely to take an effect on dental care than the visual impairment. 4 Visual Impairment has an impact on oral health through physical, social, or informational barriers related to impairment, medical condition and associated medical disorders. Visually impaired people are challenged every day in their daily activities. The effects of blindness are many, but one of the most common is the inability of the individual to maintain oral health. 5 Despite the high prevalence of visually impaired people in Saudi Arabia, there is no suffcient information about oral health in this population. It is essential to assess the oral needs and demands of this under-privilege population for one to be able to set policies and plan for oral health program, the purpose of this study is to assess the oral health status of children with a visual impairment. Literature Review Methods of literature search and appraisal The literature search was conducted from October 2017–January 2018 using the Saudi Digital Library. The systematic search was done by carrying out a topic search using the basic search that included related terms “Visual Impairment, Oral Health, Blindness, Caries, Plaque, Orthodontic, Periodontal, Malocclusion, Medical Complication, Dental Surface, and Health Services”. The searches were limited to studies published between 1965-2017, English language, and subjects aged 6 – 15 years old. Prevalence of visual impairment in Saudi Arabia In Comparison, the prevalence of dental caries and gingivitis are higher among visually impaired children rather that visually impaired adults. 6 Still other studies have revealed that the oral hygiene of the blind population in general is signifcantly worse than in an equivalent sighted one. 7 Another aspect to look at is that patients who have a visual impairment may not pick up on certain non-verbal aspects and may be disadvantaged in regard to this issue. With respect to written information used in dental services few clinics provide large print/ Braille appointment cards or information sheets. 8 Of course, some dental treatments might be invasive and perceivably threatening and a visual impairment may make this more so, hence it may be appropriate to commence treatment with short appointments until the patient is accustomed and used to the dental staff and a a rapport is established. 9 Oral health status Caries involvement A number of studies have reported Visually Impaired Children (VIC) have a higher caries prevalence than non-Visually Impaired Children (Non-VIC). 6,10 Consequently, they may be at a higher risk of developing oral diseases which include dental caries or periodontal disease, resulting from a greater diffculty in attaining good oral hygiene. Additionally, it might be due to the visual barrier in gaining the ability to visually assess whether dental plaque has been effectively removed or if their gums bleed while brushing their teeth; dental plaque is an important prerequisite for the development of dental caries and periodontal diseases. 11 Rationally, visually impaired individuals cannot visualize the plaque on the teeth surface, so even after getting a hold in understanding the importance of oral hygiene it would still be diffcult for them which may result in the progression of dental caries as well as infammatory disease of the periodontium 12 A study of children suggested that caries load is not affected by visual impairment. 13 However, there is a positive association between some causes of ocular disease and dental caries, ie. Sjögren’s syndrome. 14 Periodontium & soft tissues Such as caries, periodontal problems are also resulting from poor oral hygiene. In 2003 Nandini et, al made a study which involved a comparison between caries and gingivitis within the visually impaired. It has been shown that thirty-seven percent of the participants were affected by dental caries and seventy-one percent by gingivitis. Visual impairment can have a negative effect upon the individual’s oral hygiene, some of them having poorer oral hygiene than sighted peers. As they might have a higher risk in generating periodontal diseases with higher levels of calculus and debris than those who lack a visual impairment. 13 According to Shetty et al, 2010 sixty-six percent of visually impaired children (VIC) reported diffculty in tooth brushing J Dent Health Oral Disord Ther. 2018;9(3):222‒227. 222 © 2018 Alghamdi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Oral health fndings, needs and demands of visually impaired children in Saudi Arabia Volume 9 Issue 3 - 2018 Najla Alghamdi, 1 Mustafa Alshehri, 1 Mansour Assery, 1 Abdulrahman Al Saffan, 1 Hoda Abdellatif 2 1 Department of Dentistry, Riyadh Elm University, Saudi Arabia 2 College of Dentistry, Princess Nourah University, Saudi Arabia Correspondence: Najla Alghamdi, Department of Dentistry, Riyadh Elm University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tel +966 50 140 3331, Email Nmalfhdan@hotmail.com Received: June 06, 2018 | Published: June 19, 2018 Introduction An estimated 253 million people live with vision impairment: 36 million are blind and 217 million have moderate to severe vision impairment (Bourne 2017). Few studies were done in Saudi Arabia on visual impaired population. In 1986, a revealed that 1.5% of the Saudi population is fully blind, while 7.8% is partially blind according to the World Health Organization defnition. The etiology of visual impairment varies with different population groups. According to the WHO the most common cause of visual impairment in the developing world is untreated cataract (43%) and different ocular disease secondary to diabetes mellitus (24%). 1 In developed countries the most common cause of visual impairment is cited as age-related macular degeneration. THe Royal National Institute for the Blind stated that Journal of Dental Health Oral Disorders & Terapy Research Article Open Access