“He’s very smart,” Kramer said, “and he knows how hard he is.”
Ms. Kramer takes her medicine and falls asleep around 11 p.m. For the next two hours, sitting at a small dining table beneath a framed wall picture that reads, “Live. Laugh. Love,” her mother does administrative work: coordinating shift schedules for six caregivers, managing medications, filling out paperwork for the Medicaid program that covers the costs of care, and tracking progress in a long-running effort to get her son into a nursing home before she ages out. Her son has been on a waiting list for 15 years.
I also make chicken salad every other day for lunch.
Be as quiet as possible.
Experiences like hers motivated Dr. Hood and others to address the needs of the intellectually disabled, and in 2002 they opened a dental clinic for the intellectually disabled, named for its strongest supporters, family advocate Louise Underwood and state Assemblyman Jimmy Lee, whose support began with visits to facilities in the state as part of his legislative duties.
“The first thing we saw,” Lee says, “was that about 70 percent had no teeth.”
According to Dr Hood, more than half of people with intellectual disabilities also suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease, which may be a side effect of medication or a result of being confined to a wheelchair or bed. Many people have difficulty expressing themselves, leading to untreated acid reflux problems that can erode tooth enamel.
The dental clinic has been a godsend for hundreds of patients across Kentucky, some of whose parents drove hours, passing multiple dentists along the way, to have their adult children receive compassionate, comprehensive care.
Dr. Hood, 61, a dentist with a shaven head as if ready for battle, found his calling nearly two decades ago after completing his residency at a state facility. A few years later, he approached his son-in-law, Dr. Holder, just after he’d finished his medical training. “There’s a need here,” Dr. Holder remembers his father-in-law saying. “You can really make an impact.”