sleep dentistry
Smile Magazine
From the frontlines.
Dr Yassmin incorporated Sleep Dentistry into his practice at Broadway Dental Centre almost four years ago.
"There's a percentage of patients, no matter how good you are or how gentle your technique, that aren't going to walk into your practice. I wanted to fill that gap and be able to provide that service without compromising the dentistry. By getting someone who is just focused on sedation, I'm totally focused on dentistry."
He finds that when he promotes the sleep dentistry option, patients who are fearful of undergoing dental treatment "come out of the woodwork."
"I had some patients who wouldn't even have a consultation because they didn't want to walk into the surgery. We had one young man who had his initial consult in the waiting room and from then on the next visit was the sedation and I had to do my charting and diagnostics while he was sedated. As with other dental phobic patients, he became less apprehensive and as time went on some were having minor procedures without sleep dentistry.
The psychological phobia is slowly getting better because they feel they are in a safe environment; even though they are asleep for it they feel they are going somewhere where they will be safe," says Yassmin. "It's also good for cosmetic dentistry where you're doing a lot of work for a period of time.
But then when you ask them at the following visit, they don't remember sitting in the recovery room. Initially they think they remember but then it becomes all fragmented."