Local anesthesia is vital to the dental profession because of its benefit to patients and the dental team. In today’s dentistry patient comfort is extremely important along with making sure that the standard of care is met. Without the use of local anesthetic patients would be in excruciating pain during dental procedures. More difficult procedures may not even be able to be done because of the level of pain it would cause. Because many people fear the dentist and pain in general, without local anesthetic many patients probably wouldn’t even bother getting treatment because of the fear of pain. Without the many different discoveries and advances in anesthetic it would be difficult for both the patient to receive the care that they need and
…show more content…
The big reason that anesthetic is so vital to dental care is to maintain patient comfort throughout treatment and to alleviate some of their anxieties if at all possible. Minimizing pain during surgeries and various dental operations has been a part of history dating back to medieval times. Before the invention of today’s local anesthetic many different techniques were used to try and help ease patient discomfort during operations. While most of them offered no help in lessening the pain, they were all a great first step in realizing that something was needed in order to move forward. Surgeries and operations before anesthetic were very painful and often someone was needed to help control the patients. In some cases, in order to complete a surgery many men were needed to hold down the patients and the surgeons had to try and drown on the patient’s cries and try to work as quickly as they possibly could (Blatner, 2018). Other techniques such as compression, bitter root, cold water, pressure on blood vessels, mandragora, cannabis, henbane, opium, alcohol and even electricity were used to help try to comfort the patient during painful procedures (Goldie, 2018). None of these techniques for minimizing patient discomfort were effective enough and many of them were addictive and caused adverse side effects. They knew that in order to maintain patient comfort during these procedures something stronger, more effective, and longer-lasting was
The big reason that anesthetic is so vital to dental care is to maintain patient comfort throughout treatment and to alleviate some of their anxieties if at all possible. Minimizing pain during surgeries and various dental operations has been a part of history dating back to medieval times. Before the invention of today’s local anesthetic many different techniques were used to try and help ease patient discomfort during operations. While most of them offered no help in lessening the pain, they were all a great first step in realizing that something was needed in order to move forward. Surgeries and operations before anesthetic were very painful and often someone was needed to help control the patients. In some cases, in order to complete a surgery many men were needed to hold down the patients and the surgeons had to try and drown on the patient’s cries and try to work as quickly as they possibly could (Blatner, 2018). Other techniques such as compression, bitter root, cold water, pressure on blood vessels, mandragora, cannabis, henbane, opium, alcohol and even electricity were used to help try to comfort the patient during painful procedures (Goldie, 2018). None of these techniques for minimizing patient discomfort were effective enough and many of them were addictive and caused adverse side effects. They knew that in order to maintain patient comfort during these procedures something stronger, more effective, and longer-lasting was