Dr James Frizzell DDS Releases Journal Article on Trauma Informed Care

TORONTO, Sept. 24, 2026 /CNW/ -- Trauma-informed care in a dental office is a team effort, including the front desk receptionists, dental assistants, hygienists and dentists. Every dental patient has experienced some form of trauma in their life.

In our dental office medical history form, we have a portion of the form, in a "checklist format. We randomly added extra checklist questions to customize the form. Following are a few well-placed questions used to customize a dental medical history form to determine the need for trauma-informed care:

1. Elderly abuse victim
2. Ever been assaulted
3. Intimate partner abuse/violence
4. PTSD
5. TBI (traumatic brain injury)
6. Child abuse/physical/sexual
7. Suicidal thoughts
8. Eating disorder
9. Depression
10. Human trafficking victim

Intimate partner abuse and violence may include coercion, manipulation, threats directly or by text message; it may include concussions (TBI) from blunt force trauma and/or include non-fatal strangulation.

In an adult's life, regarding PTSD, "a subset of individuals with a trauma history will go on to develop posttraumatic stress disorder."¹ "An estimated five percent of individuals will have a diagnosis of PTSD in their lifetime."¹ "Early trauma may rewire the brain, opening circuits that help survival in the short term but ultimately harm the body they are designed to protect."² The PTSD trauma source could be a child abuse or domestic violence or military/police service, or other life events. "With PTSD, what it means is that your body will react to any subsequent adversity as though it's a five-alarm fire." ²

"Those who had experienced childhood trauma, the types of adverse experiences, the worse their health as adults. For example, they were two-and-a-half times more likely to have contracted STD's, and almost four times more likely to have developed obstructive pulmonary disease; and twelve times more likely to have attempted suicide.² Also, "adult survivors of child abuse were still 45 percent more likely to suffer from heart disease than non-abused peers."² Also, "it was discovered that adult survivors of childhood abuse also face greater risk of migraines, osteoarthritis, ulcerative colitis, and a host of other physical disorders."²

SOURCE Dr James Frizzell DDS

dr james frizzell, 905 356 8613, [email protected]