抄録
Although there are numerous reports of oral trauma during eating caused by cutlery such as chopsticks and forks, there have been no reports of accidental wedging into the dental arch caused by spoons, other than accidental ingestion and trauma, as far as we can ascertain. We report the case of a spoon used for meal assistance accidentally wedged into the narrow mandibular dental arch of a woman and that could not be removed from the mouth, causing her visit to our department. The patient, a 44-year-old woman with cerebral palsy, had full assistance with activities of daily living. The person in charge of the facility was feeding the patient a jelly meal with a spoon. When the spoon could not be removed from the patient’s mouth, she was transported to our hospital as an emergency case. The intraoral view showed that the bowl of the spoon, which was wider than the dental arch, was horizontally occluded in the part of the mandibular molar that had an overhang tilting toward the lingual side. Furthermore, the bowl of the spoon was pushed up by the pressure of the tongue and pressed against the overhang of the dental arch, making it difficult to remove. Radiographs showed that the airway was kept open. Owing to only a small amount of bleeding, we considered that the spoon could be removed. By holding the handle of the spoon and pushing down on the tongue, the spoon was disengaged from the overhang of the dental arch and removed. It is important to predict the risk of accidental symptoms in similar situations as the present case when using a spoon.
