By Dr. Priyanka Puri, Founder – SmileXpertz, Gurugram

Do you know what is Odontobhobia….. well…  If the answer is NO then let me tell you what it is!

It is dental anxiety and is very common. It is described as the feeling  of being nervous or afraid of going to a dentist. Common fears include fear of dental pain, clinical environment and phobia of a needle.

The Smile Xpetrz team is used to treating nervous patients and have a range of solutions for making the visits easier.

• Pre-treatment conditioning: The patient is invited to come for an initial meeting. She is invited to sit on the dental chair and spend a little time talking. She feels more comfortable in the dental chair rather than associating it with pain or fear.

These pre treatment appointments are great opportunities to review patients’ medical history, take pre-operation photos. It helps the patient to be relaxed and build trust on the dentist.

• Distracting techniques: Soft, soothing music during the dental procedure  eases the patient and distracts them from the noise associated with the procedure. It really helps to relax phobic patients .

• Other innovations: New technological advances in daily practice such as needle free injections are used as an adjunct to the injection process . We no longer hurt our patients

Special consideration for pediatric patients:

Special care is taken while treating kids at SmileXpertz.

There is a chamber specially designed for kids having Toys, cartoon videos, cartoon dental chair which the child would love to sit on. Walls have been designed in a way that the child doesn’t  feel like he has come to a dentist to get his treatment done. Audio-visual aids have been added to keep the child busy while the procedure is being carried out.

We tell our patients what we are doing ,and do so in an honest way.children do much better with explanitation followed by immediately doing what’s shown to them. They worry if too much prepration goes into an appointment. We follow the principal of TELL, SHOW and DO.

TELL: The dentist uses the language that child can understand and tells the child what is to be done.

SHOW: The dentist demonstrate the procedure to the child using models or himself/herself

DO: Dentist proceed to do the procedure exactly as described.

Dr. Priyanka Puri is an expert in healthcare franchising. The company – SmileXpertz runs a chain of Dental clinics in Gurugram and are looking to expand elsewhere.