What is Sedation Dentistry?

As the name indicates, sedation dentistry involves administering a sedative of some type to patients to make the process of receiving dental treatment confortable and free from stress and anxiety. Sedation dentistry is also referred to as sleep dentistry, relaxation dentistry, and anxiety-free dentistry, but the correct term is sedation dentistry.

Sedation dentistry is not new. The procedure goes back to the days of giving patients whiskey to help take the edge off dental pain. we’ve come a long way since then, thanks to advances in science, dentistry, and pharmacology.

Patients are never completely unconscious and are always able to move, speak, and respond to verbal requests – and yet, they have little, if any, memory of the procedure after it has been completed. Because the paitent is is more comfortable and relaxed, the dentist and his team can work more efficiently and effectively.

The basic methods of sedation dentistry include:

• Nitrous Oxcide or inhalation sedation (more popularly referred to as “laughing gas”), which is the most common form of sedation used in dentistry. It is a low concentration delivered through a nasal hood or mask system. The patient is relaxed while remaining completely aware of what is happening. an added benefit of nitrous oxcide is that it provides a slight numbing to the gum tissues, so it is often used during injections of local anesthetic.
• IV sedation, which delivers medication directly into the bloodstream through intravenous access to induce a state of conscious-like sleep.
• Oral conscious sedation uses pills (typically drugs such as diazepam, triazolam, and zaleplon) which are taken orally. this method provides a safe, effective alternative to IV sedation, allowing patients to be sedated without an additional needle.

A trained sedation dentist will customize a sedation protocal so it is appropriate for each individual paitent’s physiological and pharmacological needs.