Comfortable injections – a real practice-builder

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Dr Philip Lewis BDS talks to livelife.dental about providing treatments that exceed patients’ expectations and take away their fears.

Administering anaesthesia is one of the main hurdles that clinicians face on a daily basis, something that is a particular challenge when treating anxious or dental phobic patients. Clinicians come across many barriers to treatment plan acceptance; while many people think cost is the key consideration for patients, I believe that actually pain is their prime concern.

According to Anxiety UK, at least 3.5% of the population are affected by injection phobia, which means that they will be very anxious about situations where injections might be necessary, such as visiting the dentist.[i] When treating anxious patients, it’s essential to spend time discussing their concerns and then providing treatments in a manner that exceeds their expectations and takes away their pain and fears.

The challenges

In my experience, there are always challenges when administering manual anaesthesia and one of the most important is rate of delivery. Rapid delivery tears delicate tissues apart and always causes pain, whereas, with slow delivery, the material diffuses gently and imperceptibly into the tissue spaces so that the patient feels little or no discomfort.

However, slow and steady administration with a manual syringe is no easy task as hand fatigue can set in and there is a risk of a sudden spurt of liquid as the initial friction of the bung is overcome. Also, the high pressure required for the administration of intraligamental injections can lead to fractured cartridges and severe patient discomfort.

The alternative

To make the injection process easier, there is now an increasing choice of motorised injection systems that offer computer-assisted anaesthesia to provide slow, steady and comfortable injections.

Systems like the Calaject™ computer-assisted local anaesthesia system, which I purchased recently, provide the clinician with a choice of different programme settings, for instance intraligamental + PDL (PerioDontal Ligament) or palatal and regional nerve blocks, and the capability to provide comfortable injections in multiple regions, thus eliminating the need for extensive soft tissue anaesthesia. They even facilitate comfortable administration in traditionally sensitive areas such as the attached mucosa of the palate.

With the help of computer-assisted anaesthesia, I generally receive great feedback from my patients, some of whom have commented that their injection was “completely painless”.

A real practice-builder

Comfortable injections are a great practice builder and I regularly welcome new patients who come to us on the recommendation of others, based on the strength of their experience of our injection techniques. Patients really do appreciate this level of care, and taking away the fear of the dental injection improves the number of accepted treatment plans, which in turn leads to increased practice growth.

Philip Lewis BDS runs a single-handed private dental practice on the Isle of Wight. He qualified in London in 1977 and has special interests in aesthetic dentistry and postgraduate education. He writes extensively for the dental professional press and has had articles published in England and abroad. He has appeared on television and radio in his capacity of media spokesman for the British Dental Association. Philip lectures internationally on a range of clinical subjects. Over recent months, he has given presentations to other dentists in Romania and Pakistan as well as at a number of venues in the UK. He serves on the editorial advisory board of national dental journals and maintains membership of dental societies in the UK and overseas. Philip has gained several clinical and patient care accolades, including winning the Independent Dentistry Postgraduate Commitment Prize, being selected as a finalist in The Probe‘s National Dentist of the Year Awards and, most recently, being voted no 7 in Dentistry Magazine‘s Top 50 Most Influential People in the Profession. Philip is an Ambassador for the UK charity The Mouth Cancer Foundation and clinical lead of its Mouth Cancer Screening Accreditation Scheme.

To find out how you can improve your practice and your patients’ health and wellbeing, click here and we’ll be in touch with our recommended solutions. Visit www.calaject.co.uk to find out if CALAJECT™ is the right solution for you.

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[i] https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/anxiety-type/injection-phobia/

Cover image courtesy of Nick Youngson – link to – http://nyphotographic.com/

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