This AI app aims to transform special needs dentistry

Welcome back to Neural Notes, a column where I look at some of the most interesting AI news of the week. In this issue: a dentist from South West Sydney wants to solve the gaping hole in the Australian medical system for special needs oral care.

Dr Zanab Malik is the only special needs dentist in South West Sydney. For over a decade, Dr Malik has seen an uptick in demand for her services due to being one of the few specialists in her field. This has led her to develop a solution: an AI-powered app called My Special Needs Dental Home.

Special needs dentistry is a critical – yet often overlooked – area of healthcare. It involves providing dental care tailored to the unique needs of individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities.

These patients often require specialised approaches or products due to conditions that make standard dental care difficult or even dangerous.

“Specialist dental care is quite poor and limited, and so our patients rely on the public dental system, typically because dental treatment isn’t covered under Medicare or the National Disability Insurance Scheme,” Dr Malik told SmartCompany.

“I’ve been working with patients with special needs for a long time and see the difficulties that they face… and carers often struggling to provide oral care for our patients. They sometimes don’t get taught how to even assist tooth brushing. It can be really hard with patients that might not allow for tooth brushing or won’t open their mouth, for instance.”

Because of these difficulties and the gaping hole in the medical system, Dr Malik was inspired to create My Special Needs Dental Home to ensure individuals with disabilities receive the dental care they deserve.

For Dr Malik, this was the natural progression of the advice and oral care plans she already provides to patients and carers in South West Sydney.

“So I came up with this idea of My Special Needs Dental Home, which essentially transforms what I do in the clinical space – which is developing oral care plans that are tailored and personalised to the individual person living with special needs,” Dr Malik said.

According to Dr Malik, the app takes this to “the next level” with AI, which helps generate tailored oral care programs that can be updated over time.

“And it’s actually showing quite significant improvement in oral hygiene, which is for me, a really big criterion for success,” Dr Malik said.

One of the key features of the app is its ability to factor in a wide range of specific needs.

For example, patients with cerebral palsy may suffer from severe dysphagia, a condition that causes difficulty swallowing, making it unsafe to use standard oral care products like mouthwash.

The app would recommend safer alternatives, such as converting a mouth rinse into a gel form of an antibacterial product.

Similarly, for individuals with behavioural challenges or sensory sensitivities, the app could suggest specific techniques or products that make oral care more manageable and less distressing.

The app will also consider factors like dental risk status, behaviour challenges, and specific needs like taste aversions.

My Special Needs Dental Home is designed to support carers who are relied upon by those with special needs – sometimes for their entire lives.

“The practical component is really targeted towards carers who need to provide assisted oral care. Often we can brush our own teeth, but to brush someone else’s teeth is actually a whole new skill set,” Dr Malik said.

“It is a skill set that we want to train and that carers will benefit from – having direction around what products to use, when to use them, how to use them, and then have that practical component to support them and deliver it.”

This will include things such as video tutorials with a goal to equip carers with the knowledge and confidence to provide effective oral care.

An award-winning idea

The potential impact of the app extends beyond individual care. In settings like group homes, where multiple individuals with disabilities live together, training one carer can improve oral care for several residents.

Dr Malik hopes it will also be used by general dentists who have special needs patients, By offering an accessible educational tool for special needs dentistry, the app could help general dentists and carers across the country deliver better, more informed care – even in the absence of a specialist.

“General dentists are extremely grateful to also have guidance – they also seek support and want to further their own knowledge and armamentarium of techniques to be able to offer to their patients.

Dr Malik’s efforts in the space have not gone unnoticed. She recently won first place at the UNSW Founders South West pitch night.

“This definitely wouldn’t have been possible without the support of UNSW Founders and the Liverpool Innovation Precinct Entrepreneurship Program, which has given me the platform to be able to launch pad this idea,” she said.

The app is in the prototype stage, with Dr Malik actively seeking investors to bring it to market. Her goal is to have an MVP ready for testing in South West Sydney in the coming months, with plans for a national rollout down the track.

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