Dental Anxiety

Suggest two aspects of dental treatment that causes patient anxiety in dentistry Two aspects that causes patients
anxiety are fear of unknown which means, the patient does not know how it is going to feel and afraid because she/he never gone through this particular treatment and awful dental treatment experience. For each item listed, describe what you, as a dentist could do to reduce anxiety 1. Communication Staff-patient communication with patients plays a very important role in anxiety reduction. Establishing trust and keeping patients informed and in control throughout a visit to the dentist helps calm dental anxiety. One option is for patients to use hand signals to communicate with the dentist throughout a procedure. When a patient feels uncomfortable, he or she can signal the dentist and the dentist stops the procedure. This method of communication empowers patients and makes visiting the dentist less stressful for them. 2. Behavioural techniques i) Disensitization It is a training procedure/steps taken to reduce sensitivity of patient to particular anxiety producing situation/object. Each situation/ object is introduced progressively starting from least fear producing to more threatening stimuli. Three stages are involved, training patient to relax, constructing hierarchy of fear producing stimuli related to patientss principal fear and lastly introducing each stimulus in the hierarchy in turn to the relaxed patient, starting with the stimuli that causes less fear and progressing to the next when the patient no longer fear the stimulus. For example, if a child patient is frightened to restorations, disensitization includes successive introduction of child to reception, dentist, dental chair, oral examination, oral prophylaxis and restorations. ii.) Tell-show-do The tell-show-do technique was originally developed for use in pediatric dentistry, but can also be used with nervous adult patients. The technique involves verbal explanations of procedures in easy-to-understand language (tell), followed by demonstrations of the sights, sounds, smells, and tactile aspects of the procedure in a non-threatening way (show), followed by the actual procedure (do).
iii.) Relaxation techniques Other behavioral treatments include teaching individuals relaxation techniques, such as diaphragmatic breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. This method can be very effective in motivated and cooperative patients, and can be used before and during treatment. 3. Sedation Dentists may prescribe an oral sedative, such as a benzodiazepine. Conscious sedation techniques are reliable and safe for managing dental anxiety, while more severely anxious and uncooperative patients can be treated under general anaesthesia. Agents such as nitrous oxide and oxygen are inhaled through a mask and cause feelings of relaxation and dissociation. 4. Operative technique Atraumatic restorative technique (ART) method has been used extensively in dentistry for conservative management of open cavitations in dentine, without need for injected local anaesthesia. On the other hand, chemo-mechanical caries removal (Carisolv) is a minimally invasive method, which involves the dentine during cavity preparation, as a form of accelerated ART. The other options are such as air abrasion and middle infrared lasers may now also be considered alternative methods for tooth preparation and caries removal.Use of these novel methods may be effectively targeted to anxious dental patients, where the different methods reduce the major stimuli for anxiety and also provide a distraction effect, thus giving overall a reduction in dental anxiety. 3. Why is this important for dental health professional to assess patients fear? It is important that a patient tell the doctor if they have any dental anxiety related to their planned dental treatment. Keeping their fears hidden can only lead to a much more unpleasant experience for the patient and, in more extreme circumstances, may even increase the likelihood of certain emergencies occurring, such as fainting. Avoiding the dentist because of fear may cause an individual's minor untreated dental problems to develop into severe oral health conditions and in rare cases even death. When fear is not corrected, it can become harder to get the patient to participate in dental procedures causing a total avoidance of dental visits, which can lead to poor hygiene and lack of proper care for their teeth. This expectance of pain leads many to miss appointments and be unwilling to seek professional help for simple things like toothaches. These simple things can lead to larger problems resulting in decaying teeth and poorly cared for gums. Anxious patients may delay dental treatment or miss appointments without explanation leading to a deterioration of their dental condition.
air abrasion, chemo-mechanical caries removal and middle

Dental Anxiety

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Suggest two aspects of dental treatment that causes patient anxiety in dentistry Two aspects that causes patients

air abrasion, chemo-mechanical caries removal and middle

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