View clinical trials related to Pediatric Dentistry.
Filter by:Dental Fear and Anxiety (DFA) are at higher levels among children and often leads to avoidance of dental treatment. Negative experiences in the early years such as experience of pain during injections, fillings, or extractions may lead to difficulties in treatment and behavior management among children. During dental procedures such as restorations and extractions injectable anesthetics are required as they are used to anesthetize and numb the area around the tooth receiving treatment. Topical anesthetics are used prior to using injectable anesthetic to alleviate some pain and discomfort. Topical anesthetics should be used with caution as they consist of more concentrated doses of pharmaceutical elements used in injectable anesthetics. Such high concentrations can result in increased gag reflux, central nervous system depression and cardiovascular effects in rare cases. With many recent advances in dental treatment, there is also a need for new non-pharmaceutical strategies to alleviate pain and discomfort among children which in turn will motivate children and their parents to visit the dental clinic more frequently. Electronic anesthesia or Synapse Transcutaneous Electronic Nerve Stimulation (TENS), a non-invasive device that uses low energy electrical stimulation to reduce pain perception, has gained acceptance since the 1990s. Advantages of using the TENS device are that it is safe, easy to use, well-accepted among patients as evidenced in the few trials conducted so far, no adverse complications and has been successful in alleviating pain during dental procedures. This study aims to explore use of the TENS to alleviate pain and discomfort at the oral mucosal site where the patient will receive a local anesthetic injection. In this randomized case-crossover trial among children aged 6-14 years the effectiveness of Aleve TENS device in reducing pain and anxiety among children prior to receiving injectable local anesthetic agent during dental procedures is compared to those who receive the local anesthetic gel prior to receiving local anesthetic injection.
As a dentist, administering anesthetic to patients, especially children, proves to be one of the most difficult parts of a procedure. Pain is one of the most common symptom in dentistry, and a serious concern for the dentist. The pain of the local anesthetic injection has several causes. Of the many reasons for pain at the site of injection, the acidity of the solution is thought to be most important. This study will be measuring the effects of adding sodium bicarbonate (buffer) to local anesthetic during dental procedures. This is commonly used in medical applications but is not widely used in the dental setting. Using this biochemistry and human physiology, one can predict when buffering the lidocaine injection, a quicker response in analgesia and a decrease in pain during administration. I will be measuring the effect using several measuring devices to gauge if buffering the local anesthetic will benefit the pediatric dental patient by reducing the time it takes for the analgesic effect as well as decreasing the pain during administration. Along with time, I will be using the Wong-Baker Scale to assess the pain. This scale is standard protocol for assessing pain in the pediatric population. The pediatric dental population has aversions to dental procedures because of the associated pain produced from most procedures. If limiting the time it takes for the analgesic to take effect and decrease the pain altogether, the pediatric patient will be less likely to skip treatment therefore, increase dental health.