Aliaa A. Khadre, Luca Fiorillo
European Journal of General Dentistry - 2026;15(2):175-183
While domiciliary dental care is not a new concept, the shift in healthcare delivery post-COVID-19, with aging populations and mobile care gaps, presents a critical unmet need. The need for patients with intellectual disability, physical limitations, and social and emotional deficits to maintain good oral hygiene, reduce pain, and achieve proper function. This approach applies to infants, children, and adults with special healthcare needs. Geriatric patients as well consistently face limited access to service while providers struggle with infection control outside the clinic. It is the usual role of the operator to come up with a diagnosis & dental care management plan and prioritize appropriate treatment. In the dental home, several more duties are deployed. It is necessary to select the best dental home arrangement for the patient that reduces risks and errors, maximizing safety and efficiency. In some cases where patient mobilization is impossible, the patient position is fixed under challenging settings and will dictate the position of the operator, assistant, and portable machine. Another duty at the dental home is to ensure proper communication between family members and coordinate the patient's future care. The review seeks to point out work flow guidelines, importance of effective communication, comprehensive safety guidelines in the use of mobile dental units MDUs and portable X-ray machines. In addition, propose ergonomic solutions, standardize procedures, and address practical challenges faced by professionals supported by global protocols and contextualized for underrepresented settings.
