Dental practices around our neighborhoods are making the transition, gone are the days of the staunch boring reception area and the intimidating, dauntingly invasive, operatory environment.

Along with dental patient comfort concerns, dental offices these days are taking advantages of advances in technology and patient communications; and this win-win situation benefits the dentists as much as the dental patients.

Our local dentists are better equipped to serve their communities, and communicate new less invasive, relatively painless ways to service dentistry to the local neighborhood!

Dental patients are happy to return to their trusted dentist; we understand preventative dentistry costs us way less than waiting ‘til something hurts, or worse. And we take comfort in the fact that a trip to the dentist can be a relaxing comfortable experience.

Here are three more recent advancements in dental patient comfort, be sure to share your thoughts and comments below:

IntraOral Cam

The use of the Intra-Oral camera system has allowed dental patients to actually witness what it is our dentist is doing inside our mouths.

Dentists can now use intra oral cameras together with a chair-side monitor in order to increase patient education and awareness.

Sometimes as patients, we can even feel resentful or reticent about certain dental procedures recommended by our dentist – we recommend finding a new dentist if that’s the case – but the intra oral camera also allows us to get some visual evidence.

We don’t have to take anyone’s word for it…we’re sure our trusted dentists would be happy to illustrate in full digital 1080pHD, exactly what oral maladies need attention!

Visual cues help us understand and that understanding reduces our fear, helping us become more comfortable with that root canal, however uncomfortable the notion may seem.

Lasers

The use of lasers in dentistry is a significant advancement that has taken place within our lifetime. The days of the kick drill or hamster wheel cavity coring contraption have given way to space age dental technology and improved patient comfort.

According to the Academy of Laser Dentistry, with laser surgery, there is a reduced need for local anesthesia, bleeding is minimized, swelling is controlled, and there is usually little, if any, postoperative discomfort.

Laser energy enhances the effect of tooth bleaching agents for a faster and more effective result. Natural looking restorative materials for teeth are more quickly cured to greater hardness. Lasers that remove tooth decay are fast and seldom require anesthesia.

Dental lasers are used for a variety of treatment procedures. Your dentist knows which types of patient care are more patient friendly with a laser than with alternative traditional methods.

Have questions about laser dentistry…ASK your dentist!

Communication

Dentists are connecting and communicating with patients and their surrounding communities in ways never before realized. Our personal interaction and communication habits have allowed us to open ourselves up to this age of dental enlightenment.

Local dentists are publishing beneficial dental health articles, offering free oral cancer screenings, and engaging their local communities beyond the simple appointment reminder.

Our dentists are community partners in our oral health; partners with us in our ceaseless defense of defending our optimal oral health that is constantly threatened by the problematically persistent cavity creeps.

We need to talk to our dentists more…and that includes outside the office, when their hands aren’t poking and prodding in our mouths.

Give them feedback, offer suggestions, respond to surveys, and maybe once in a while spread some digital word of mouth about your dentist.

From Foursquare to Facebook, dental practice to patient communications has changed.

How else have improvements in communication led to improvements in patient comfort?