Katherine Ford visited her father, Dean Piercy, a World War II veteran with dementia, at a nursing home in Roanoke, Va., for months before she noticed the dust on his electric toothbrush. His teeth, she found, had not been brushed recently, so she began doing it herself after their lunches together.

But after he complained of a severe, unrelenting headache, she said, she badgered the staff to make an appointment for him with his dentist. The dentist found that a tooth had broken in two, and he showed Ms. Ford the part that had lodged in the roof of her father’s mouth.

“I was livid,” said Ms. Ford, 57, a court reporter. “I’m there every day, pointing out he’s in pain — and he had dental insurance. So there’s no reason this wasn’t addressed.” Read more here.