dentapress: news of dentistry

Distraction As Pain Relief

CB — Sat, 19 May 2012 09:22:09 +0000

Mental distractions make pain easier to take, and those pain-relieving effects aren’t just in your head, according to a report published online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.
The findings based on high-resolution spinal fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) as people experienced painful levels of heat show that mental distractions actually inhibit the response to incoming pain signals at the earliest stage of central pain processing…

Who’s Most Afraid of the Dentist?

JG — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:43:18 +0000

Who’s most afraid of the dentist? According to new research, it’s not the who you’d most expect. It’s women in their 40s. Ongoing research from the University of Sydney suggests that this demographic is more likely than other age groups to have felt trauma, abuse or oro-facial trauma. These people are also more likely to be depressed, anxious or stressed, researchers found. “Dental anxiety is very real and complex and it should never be downplayed,” study researcher Dr. Avanti Karve, of the University of Sydney Faculty of Dentistry, said in a statement. Karve explained that people who have a great fear of the dentist wait 17 days, on average, to make an appointment to see the dentist when they are feeling severe pain.

High taxes deter some youths from smoking

JG — Sat, 19 May 2012 07:46:02 +0000

Fewer American teenagers and young adults are lighting up as cigarette taxes that have broken the $3-a-pack threshold in some states make smoking too costly, according to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Daily smoking, the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States, fell to 15.8 percent in 2010 among young adults 18 to 25, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said in a report. That share was down from 20.4 percent in 2004. Everyday smoking among people 12 to 17 dropped to about 2 percent from 3.3 percent.

W&H: Proface – New and innovative caries detection.

WH Dentalwerk — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:54:17 +0000

The new Proface light probe by W&H enables direct visual detection of caries in opened cavities. While conventional methods only offer indirect information on the extent of caries in infected dentine, Proface gives dentists the ability to assess the treatment site at a glance.

Texas dentist who did tummy tucks, breast surgery guilty of Medicaid swindle, feds say

JG — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:06:32 +0000

A Laredo dentist with a penchant for performing illegal breast augmentation, and his wife, have pleaded guilty to submitting fake bills to Texas Medicaid, including “performing patient evaluations” while they Take a bite out of crime were actually on trips to Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Despite owing the state’s Health and Human Services Commission $688,545 in restitution, they will be sentenced to five years probation, the government says. Carlos Armin Morales-Ryan, 45, and wife and orthodontist Nelia Patricia Garcia-Morales, 42, owned and
operated Orthogenesis International Centre, a Laredo dentistry and orthodontics business, and a substantial portion of their business was targeted to rendering services to Medicaid-eligible children.

Build Patient Relationships and Your Practice

JG — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:41:11 +0000

When dentists start comparing their practice with the most successful ones, they’ll notice one thing – good dentists know how to build lasting relationships with their patients. The truth is that patients nowadays aren’t just after the service; they’re after the entire experience in general. When patients are looking for a dentist, they do not just base their decision on which school you graduated from or how long you have been working. They take into consideration on how comfortable and welcomed they feel. The phone call. Most of the time, your prospects will contact you through your office landline. The wise dentists know better than to underestimate the power of the phone call. Having a cold and indifferent person handle these calls is the easiest way to lose prospects to your competition. Your front office worker should have basic phone call etiquette and genuinely be helpful. By definition of helpful, it isn’t just answering your prospects’ questions but also making things easier for them from booking appointments to suggesting treatments. If your front desk worker isn’t comfortable answering calls, you can always prepare a script for them.

Many Primary Care Docs Don’t Know Long-Term Effects of Chemo: Survey

JG — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:36:18 +0000

Many primary care doctors don’t know the long-term side effects of the chemotherapy treatments that cancer survivors under their care may have been given, a new survey found. On the other hand, most oncologists — though not all — are familiar with the side effects of four common treatments used to treat breast and colon cancer, according to the results of the survey being presented at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.

Brushing Teeth – Which Way Is The Right Way?

JG — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:31:28 +0000

Twenty five percent of teenagers in Sweden do not brush their teeth regularly and only 10% of Swedes know how to use toothpaste effectively, according to researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg. Even though the majority of people in Sweden brush their teeth, only 1 in 10 brush in a way that effectively prevents tooth decay. Pia Gabre and her colleagues examined the toothbrushing habits of 2,013 Swedes aged between 15 to 80 years old. The researchers set out to determine how often and how long they brushed their teeth, how much toothpaste is put on the toothbrush, how often fluoride toothpaste is used and how much water is used during and after brushing.

Fitness Fights High Blood Pressure Genes

JG — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:24:38 +0000

Does high blood pressure run in your family? Keeping physically fit may lower your odds of developing high blood pressure by a third. A new study shows that physically fit people with a family history of high blood pressure were up to 34% less likely to develop high blood pressure than people who rarely exercised. And it didn’t take hours of working out at the gym every day to get that benefit.

Dental Disasters

JG — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:43:32 +0000

Our teeth are a pretty big deal – brush and floss twice a day; see a dentist twice a year. But that last part is what many of us would rather avoid altogether. Sometimes dental dread is due to bad experiences at the dentist. Nampa dentist William Wolff says he doesn’t see it often, but he has seen patients who have had botched dental treatments. “For the most part, dentists are very professional and they want their patient’s best interests at heart, so I don’t think it happens a lot,” Wolff said. “But there are things to do to make sure it doesn’t happen.”