dental care

High Amount of Suicide Ideation Among Australian Dental Professionals

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An interesting article titled “Factors associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts by Australian dental practitioners,” appears in Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology published on February 22, 2023, and written by Matthew S. Hopcraft and et. al. The article seeks to investigate factors in Australian dental practitioners and their association with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Previously on this site it has been discussed how medical and dental students, dentists, and medical doctors have an increased risk of suicide, see for example the posts Medical School Student Costs in the U.S. are Affecting Mental Health, Designing a Predoctoral Dental Curriculum To Help With Therapy Issues such as Stress Management and Suicide Prevention, and Medical Students Are At Risk For Suicide. In the article the authors mention how health practitioners have higher rates of suicidal ideation and death by suicide and … Read more

Reducing Anxiety among Pediatric Dental Patients

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An interesting article titled “an Anxiety Reduction Program as an Alternative to General Anesthesia for the Anxious Pediatric Dental Patient” was presented on July 23, 2021, at the virtual session of the 2021 International Association for Dental Research (IADR)/AADR/CADR General Session written by Suher Baker and et al. The research set to investigate the efficacy of a systematic Anxiety Reduction Program (ARP) using progressive desensitization to reduce anxiety in children to a level that would allow dental treatment to be performed in-office without the use of general anesthesia. Dental anxiety has been covered on this site before see for example the post Dental Anxiety and Fear: Impact on Oral Health. Children are more likely to experience an unfavorable and unforeseen incident caused by an error or omission during dental treatment that has negative health consequencies. This is because children do … Read more

Does Medicare Cover Dental Services in 2023?

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In the U.S. when Americans turn 65 they are eligible for medical services and health insurance under the program called Medicare. Unfortunately Medicare doesn’t cover most dental care such as procedures and supplies like tooth extractions, cleanings, fillings, dentures, dental plates, or other dental devices. Recent surveys have shown that most people are in favor of expanding Medicare to include services like dental an vision. Many are also in favor of lowering the age of eligibity to less than 65. As of 2023. As of January 1, 2023, Medicare has now been expande to cover medically necessary conditions requiring dental services. According to the ADA the following dental services are now covered under Medicare: Such care can be performed in both an inpatient and an outpatient setting. Further, coverage applies to X-rays, anesthesia, or the use of an operating room … Read more

Using an Eye Massager to Control Anxiety Before Wisdom Tooth Extraction

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An interesting article titled “Massage Therapy to Control Anxiety Before Extraction of an Impacted Tooth,” appears in Cureus in October 4, 2022, written by Kunusoth R, Colvenkar S, Alwala A, et al. (vol. 14, no. 10, pp. 29893). The article discusses a simple technique to manage anxiety during dental visits using an eye massager. Many patients experience anxiety when seeing a dentist, see for example the posts Changes in Dental Anxiety over Time and Dental Anxiety and Fear: Impact on Oral Health. Dental anxiety can be caused by such things as a prior past negative dental experience, fear of needles, and a fear of gagging or choking. These patients are more likely to cancel their appointments and may be more difficult to treat. Various treatment options for dental anxiety exist such as described in the posts Do Wisdom Teeth Surgery … Read more

Using Dental Images to Find Strokes

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An interesting article titled “Association between internal carotid artery calcifications detected as incidental findings and clinical characteristics associated with atherosclerosis: A dental volumetric tomography study” appears in the European Journal of Radiology written by Niege Michelle and et al. (no. 145, 2021). The article seeks to determine if calcifications in the internal carotid artery (ICA) in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) can be associated with vascular disorders that can lead to stroke. Calcifications in the ICA are a risk indicator for ischemic problems in cerebral circulation, cerebral atrophy, and atherosclerosis in cardiovascular circulation. In the article the researchers started with 1176 CBCT exams from a database of a private dental records involving the preparation of dental implant placement. The researchers excluded many of those CBCT scans because the patients were younger than 40 years old or they did not have a … Read more