Anxiety is a feeling of nervousness and fear, generally related to an unknown result of some activity. Directly derived from this definition is the ‘Dental anxiety’ and it’s nothing but the anxiety that originates from the idea of visiting a dentist. We’ve grown up through an era when discomfort and pain were part and parcel of a dental visit. For a painless dental experience, you can visit Beyond 32 Dental’s clinic in Cherrybrook. They use the latest equipment and a variety of tranquilizers for their dental procedures. The painful experiences of the past have however got embedded at our genetic levels. The dental specialists have also appreciated this and have devised ways termed as ‘Anxiety-Free Dentistry’ to calm the patient before and during the sitting.
Methods of Anxiety-Free Dentistry
Anxiety is not a disorder that you can simply treat it. It’s a psychological phenomenon and hence needs to be mainly addressed at that level. However, there are drugs that can be administered to patients to have a calming effect according to a dentist in Pennant Hills at Beyond 32 Dental clinic.
Following are the main ways of handling anxiety:
Psycho-therapeutic Methods
As the name suggests, these methods deal with anxiety at a psychological level. These can further be subdivided into the following types :
- Behavioral Therapy. These involve educating, acupuncture, positive distractions, muscle relaxing and breathing exercises, etc to alter the negative behavior. Hypnosis, bio-feedback and exposure-based therapy may be employed in extreme cases.
- Cognitive Methods. These methods aim at restructuring the negative perceptions and empowering the patient to have enhanced control over illogical apprehensions.
- Cognitive Behavior Treatment. It’s simply a combination of the above two methods and is the most widely and successfully used psychological therapy.
Pharmacological Treatment
The dental-phobic patients who either don’t respond to or are not willing to take the psychological therapies have to be treated using medications. These include administration of sedatives (mostly oral) or anesthetic injections. While opting for these, you must ensure that you don’t have to drive back.
Psycho-therapeutic and Pharmacological Treatments
A combination of the Psycho-therapeutic and Pharmacological treatments can also be used in some cases where any of the above treatments don’t yield the desired result individually.
With state-of-the-art equipment, the latest dental technology, and effective yet safe and mild sedatives, a dental visit is no longer uncomfortable and painful. However, most of the people still have a phobia when it comes to visiting a dentist. Anxiety-Free Dentistry aims at tackling the anxiety of patients through various methods. The dentist has to have all the therapies at his disposal as different patients may require a different treatment for anxiety. Small steps like changing the general environment at the dental clinic by providing comfortable seats, coffee and snacks to the waiting patients can go a long way in dealing with the anxiety of patients even before the first interaction.
