Dental management

Chronic craniofacial pain involves the head, face and oral cavity and is associated with significant morbidity and high levels of health care utilization. A bidirectional relationship is suggested in the literature for poor sleep and pain, and craniofacial pain and sleep are reciprocally related. We review this relationship and discuss management options. Part I reviews the relationship between pain and sleep disorders in the context of four diagnostic categories of chronic craniofacial pain: 1) primary headaches: migraines, tension-type headache (TTH), trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (TACs) and hypnic headache, 2) secondary headaches: sleep apnea headache, 3) temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD) and 4) painful cranial neuropathies: trigeminal neuralgia, post-herpetic trigeminal neuropathy, painful post-traumatic trigeminal neuropathy (PTTN) and burning mouth syndrome (BMS)...

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the correlation between the intensity of preoperative pain and the presence of postoperative pain, taking into account the variables sex, tooth type, arch, and tooth vitality. METHODS: Two hundred and seventy patients with pulpal pathology who were scheduled for routine endodontic treatment were enrolled in this study. Conventional endodontic treatment was carried out in a single visit. The chemomechanical preparation of root canals was performed with ProTaper instruments, and canals were obturated with a warm gutta-percha obturation technique...

AIM: The objective of this study was to evaluate the success levels of students using the Jigsaw learning method in dental education. METHOD: Fifty students with similar grade point average (GPA) scores were selected and randomly assigned into one of two groups (n = 25). A pretest concerning 'adhesion and bonding agents in dentistry' was administered to all students before classes. The Jigsaw learning method was applied to the experimental group for 3 weeks. At the same time, the control group was taking classes using the lecture-based learning method...

OBJECTIVES: Orofacial pain (OFP) is thought to substantially reduce oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). Little has been reported about the impact of acute dental pain and persistent (chronic) orofacial pain conditions, other than temporomandibular disorders (TMD), on OHRQoL. The aim of this study was to examine and compare OHRQoL impairment among four OFP conditions: TMD, acute dental pain (ADP), trigeminal neuralgia (TN) and persistent dentoalveolar pain disorder (PDAP). METHODS: OHRQoL was measured using the OHIP-49 in a convenience sample of subjects with four OFP conditions (TMD (n=41), ADP (n=41), TN (n=21), PDAP (n=22) and a pain-free control group (n=21))...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the impact of receiving a patient complaint on dentists in New Zealand. METHOD: A qualitative research method was chosen to investigate the experience of dentists in receipt of a complaint. Nine dentists practising in New Zealand who had received complaints from a variety of sources were interviewed. All volunteered having responded to requests and advertisements seeking participants for the study. In-depth interviews with line-by-line transcript analysis allowed the discovery of themes and subthemes related to the impact of complaints...

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW: Dental practitioners face new clinical challenges on a daily basis. New treatment options and diagnostic tools are disseminated quickly, and the volume of articles and new evidence is overwhelming. Systematic reviews summarize and synthesize the available evidence related to diagnosis, therapy, prognosis, and harm for clinicians, patients, and decision makers. Such reviews represent one of the most powerful tools to translate knowledge into action. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The critical appraisal of this type of study involves assessing the risk of bias, results, and applicability of such study...

A dental appointment commonly prompts fear of a painful experience, yet we have never fully understood how our brains react to the expectation of imminent tooth pain once in a dental chair. In our study, 21 patients with hypersensitive teeth were tested using nonpainful and painful stimuli in a clinical setting. Subjects were tested in a dental chair using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to measure cortical activity during a stepwise cold stimulation of a hypersensitive tooth, as well as nonpainful control stimulation on the same tooth...

The purpose of this paper was to review the current literature associated with the techniques and materials for the restoration of primary anterior teeth and make clinical recommendations based upon the available literature. A variety of esthetic restorative materials are available to utilize for restoring primary incisors. Awareness of the specific strengths, weakness, and properties of each material can enhance the clinician's ability to make the best choice of selection for each individual situation. Intracoronal restorations of primary teeth may utilize resin composites, glass ionomer cements, resin-modified ionomers, or polyacid-modified resins...

The concept that chemokines, cytokines and pro-inflammatory mediators act in a co-ordinated fashion to drive the initiation of the inflammatory reaction is well understood. The significance of such networks acting during the resolution of inflammation however is poorly appreciated. In recent years, specific pro-resolving mediators were discovered which activate resolution pathways to return tissues to homeostasis. These mediators are diverse in nature, and include specialized lipid mediators (lipoxins, resolvins, protectins and maresins) proteins (annexin A1, galectins) and peptides, gaseous mediators including hydrogen sulphide, a purine (adenosine), as well as neuromodulator release under the control of the vagus nerve...

DESIGN: Randomised controlled trial. INTERVENTION: All patients received treatment to render them dentally fit. Patients were randomly allocated to either the removable dental prostheses (RPD) or the shortened dental arch (SDA) group. Patients in the RDP group were restored to complete arches with RDP using cobalt-chromium frameworks according to a standardised protocol. For the SDA group, patients were restored to a shortened arch of ten occluding pairs of natural and replacement teeth using resin-bonded bridgework (RBB)...

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the impact of periodontal status on oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in patients with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). METHODS: 61 patients with T2DM and 74 non-diabetic patients matched for age, gender and periodontal status (health, gingivitis, chronic periodontitis) were recruited. The oral health impact profile (OHIP)-49 was self-completed by all participants at baseline and by the patients with periodontitis at 3 months and 6 months after non-surgical periodontal therapy...

OBJECTIVES: Treatment effects should be large and long-lasting. The aim of this study was to describe for patients treated with fixed dental prostheses (FDP), removable dental prostheses (RDP), and complete dentures (CD) how they perceived their oral health over a period of two years using the concept oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). METHODS: In this prospective clinical study, a consecutive sample of 272 adult patients receiving prosthodontic treatment was recruited...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: The authors aimed to determine whether electrical dental devices would interfere with the function of cardiac pacemakers or implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) in humans. METHODS: The authors exposed asymptomatic nonpacemaker-dependent patients to commonly used electrical dental equipment (for example, battery-operated curing lights, ultrasonic baths, ultrasonic scalers, electric pulp testers, and electric toothbrushes) in an outpatient cardiology clinic...

BACKGROUND: The caries lesion, the most commonly observed sign of dental caries disease, is the cumulative result of an imbalance in the dynamic demineralization and remineralization process that causes a net mineral loss over time. A classification system to categorize the location, site of origin, extent, and when possible, activity level of caries lesions consistently over time is necessary to determine which clinical treatments and therapeutic interventions are appropriate to control and treat these lesions...

PURPOSE: Tooth-supported fixed dental prostheses (FDPs) remain an extensive therapeutic option, with new materials and a digital fabrication process gradually replacing traditional methods. The variety of advances calls for dental schools to expand the teaching of this field. Our aim was to examine the nature and the amount of theoretical and practical training in clinical FDP courses, and the extent to which new methods and innovations in the field are being integrated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected using an online questionnaire including theoretical and practical teaching regarding clinical courses, restorative materials, and new fabrication methods, which was sent to 58 dental schools in North America...

The aim of this study was to determine the association between more advanced stages of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) intra-articular disorders ("TMJ intra-articular status"), representing a transition from normal joint structure to TMJ disc displacement with and without reduction (DDwR and DDwoR) to degenerative joint disease (DJD), and patient-reported outcomes of jaw pain, function, and disability ("TMD impact"). This cross-sectional study included 614 cases from the RDC/TMD Validation Project with at least one temporomandibular disorder (TMD) diagnosis...

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW: Dentists have much invested in their practices. They need to protect their practices from fraud and noncompliance. The author provides practical suggestions for how to significantly reduce the risk of fraud and theft in the practice without disrupting day-to-day operations. CONCLUSIONS: By adhering to nonintrusive policy and procedure changes, dental practice owners can reduce inherent risks of fraud and theft, while increasing financial and human resource knowledge regarding their practice...

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW: Dental practitioners spend most of their time administering treatments. To ensure that their clinical decisions are informed by the best available evidence, dental practitioners need to be skilled in critically appraising studies addressing therapy issues. Randomized controlled trials offer the optimal study design to inform decisions regarding therapy. The critical appraisal of randomized controlled trials involves assessing the risk of bias, results, and applicability...

BACKGROUND: Aerosols and spatter are concerns in health care owing to their potential adverse health effects. The Isolite illuminated isolation system (Isolite Systems) and a saliva ejector were compared for aerosol and spatter reduction during and after ultrasonic scaling. METHODS: Fifty participants were randomized to control (n = 25, saliva ejector) or test (n = 25, Isolite) groups and received a prophylaxis with an ultrasonic scaler. Aerosols were collected in a petri dish containing transport media, dispersed, and plated to anaerobic blood agar to determine colony-forming units (CFUs)...