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11/30/2017 |
Insights |
Craft Your Office Environment To Reduce Dental Anxiety |
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Craft Your Office Environment To Reduce Dental Anxiety by Dr. Cyrus Alamouti Dental anxiety is a common and challenging problem for dentists and staff alike. It’s a condition that we see in many patients here in our offices in Cologne, Germany, but it’s particularly evident in children and older adults. Our practice consists of two offices with 12 dentists and we see around 200 patients per day, so we have a good perspective on the trends in patient care and concerns. From my own experience and in conversations with colleagues, I would estimate the incidence of those who are anxious about seeing a dentist as high as 70% or 80%. Our goal has been to significantly reduce that rate of incidence within the context of our practice, and we’ve been very successful in doing this by experimenting with some new approaches and non-traditional techniques. There are many reasons for this high percentage of patients who experience dental anxiety. But at the core of this challenge is the fact that the mouth is a very sensitive part of the body, and one that a patient can’t see or monitor as you’re working there. So, a patient has to put a lot of trust in the dentist to be working in the mouth. The Right Environment Helps to Establish Trust Establishing this level of trust has to do with reducing the fear of the unknown and how the imagination can play into that. Some of a patient’s perceived fear has to do with unknowns such as the possibility of sudden, unexpected pain or how long the treatment will take. These unknowns can make patients feel very anxious, and the longer they have to wait, or the more stressful the environment the waiting takes place in, the higher the chance of incidence of dental anxiety. The most important thing for us as dentists is to gain the trust of the patient as quickly as possible, and you have about four or five minutes after meeting a patient for the first time when you can establish this baseline of trust. There’s an old saying that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, and this is true with all patients, but particularly with a new patient. Read full article on Dentistry Today.
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