Visiting a ‘dental scare’ clinic can help improve a child’s smile – Consumer Health News

THURSDAY, Jan. 20, 2022 (HealthDay News) — If the sound of a dental drill sends shivers down your spine, you’re probably in good company: Finnish researchers say one in two adults are at least somewhat afraid of the dentist, while one in 10 people are very afraid.

But the researchers added that a local dentistry program has found a new way to turn screams into smiles, exposing patients as young as 2 years old to a series of desensitizing exams that combine dental care with great variety of anxiety reduction techniques.

The program is based in the small town of Oulu in central Finland. Oulu is home to around 200,000 Finns, and now the “Clinic for Fearful Dental Patients”.

The clinic’s patients are treated by three dentists “who are interested in treating fearful patients and have taken courses in the subject,” said study author Vuokko Anttonen. Two are clinical practitioners who lecture to students on the topic of dental fear; a third is a hypnotherapist.

Anttonen is Professor of Cariology, Endodontology and Pediatric Dentistry in the Oral Health Sciences Research Unit at the University of Oulu. For the study, she and her colleagues followed the experiences of 152 patients under the clinic’s care between 2000 and 2006.

Some were adults (the oldest was 51). But almost 80% were between 2 and 10 years old. All needed dental care. Yet all had been referred to the Dental Fear Clinic by a primary oral care clinic, after several unsuccessful attempts at treatment due to dental fear.

This included: widespread fear of doctors; a specific fear of dental care; a fear of needles; a fear of specific dental procedures; and/or an uncontrollable gag reflex.

In the report published online recently in BMC Oral Healththe investigators highlighted the clinic’s two-pronged approach, tailored to the nature of each patient’s particular fear.

The first involves a battery of psychological techniques designed to promote calm and “reinforce the patient’s sense of control and confidence,” Anttonen explained. This is achieved, she said, through a bedside manner that emphasizes transparency, so even very young patients can understand the dental process and agree to proceed.

The clinic’s dentists then try to cajole, distract, relax and desensitize their patient. Sometimes this involves classic positive reinforcement, such as congratulating a child on having “passed” a procedure. Sometimes hypnotherapy is found to be helpful.

The second approach: pain control.

“Pain control is important,” Anttonen emphasized. And the various tools available to the clinic include conscious oral sedation, nitrous oxide sedation even general anesthesia.

At the end of the study, dental fears were reassessed, with success defined as no reported sign of dental fear and no continued need for sedation or systemic treatment. anesthesia.

The team concluded in an earlier study that in 2006, the clinic relieved dental fears for about seven out of 10 patients, who could then return to the dentist of their choice.

But investigators continued to follow the 152 patients for up to 10 more years, to see how often they actually did.

The researchers found that patients at the clinic collectively underwent almost 2,600 dental procedures in 2016, by which time the average age of patients was almost 22 years old.

But the results showed that younger patients – children under 10 when treated at the dental fear clinic – ended up seeing regular dentists over the next decade more than twice as often. than their older peers (an overall average of nine visits versus four visits). As a result, the clinic’s younger patients also needed significantly less emergency dental care.

“Fear is normal and can be a positive thing to keep someone from harming themselves,” Anttonen said. “But if the fear…is so strong that it prevents a person from going to the dentist, it is harmful and must be treated.”

Jane Grover is Senior Director of the American Dental Association’s (ADA) Council on Advocacy for Access and Prevention. She noted that while the ultimate goal is to keep adults from being afraid of dentists, it’s best to start early.

“Fear comes from many factors, including a hesitation in the face of the unknown,” Grover said. “When young children have a fun first visit to the dentist – to have their teeth counted [or] squirt the air/water syringe while moving up and down in the dental chair – or accompanying their parents/caregivers to a dental appointment, ideally for a preventative procedure, such as a cleaning, they experience the images and sounds of a dental office, reducing anxiety in their future appointments.”

And that’s why “the ADA has a long-standing policy on the ‘Age One’ dental visit, which provides a wonderful opportunity to engage a parent or caregiver on oral health topics, such as brushing, nutritional advice and topical benefits of fluoride,” Grover added. .

“We work in conjunction with the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, which supports a visit to the dentist at 1 year or whenever the first tooth erupts in the mouth,” she noted.

More information

There are more tips for alleviating dental fears at American Dental Association.

SOURCES: Vuokko Anttonen, PhD, DDS, professor, department of cariology, endodontology and pediatric dentistry, oral health sciences research unit, University of Oulu, Finland; Jane Grover, DDS, MPH, senior director, Council on Advocacy for Access and Prevention, American Dental Association; BMC Oral HealthOctober 13, 2021, online

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