(Newswire.net — November 29, 2015) — It is common knoledge that a dental phobia starts from early days. It is very important not to frighten children with a trip to the dentist as a threat for bad behavior. If parents are scared of the denist themselves, it is vital that children do not see fear on their parents’ face before going to the dentists. It is also known that if adults are afraid of the dentist, they usually put off their visit, which is the quickest possible way to poor oral hygiene.
Scientists have found a new way of overcoming dental phobia. New research carried out by King’s College in London looked deeply into it and released some interesting information. According to them, one in five people suffers from this type of phobia. Most of these people request to be sedated before any dental procedure in order to be able to endure it, but as the author of the research Prof Tim Newton says-“Getting sedated does not help them overcome their fear in the long term.”
It is also very important to determine whether the patients generally suffer from dental phobia or they are just frightened of particular dental equipment, like drills or injections, which simplifies the process of overcoming the fear.
The next step is, as the study suggests, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It is based on two principles, mainly: The first is that all our feelings and thoughts are connected and that bad feelings are the ones that trap people inside circulus viciosus, which is very difficult to break.The second one is that CBT helps people break this circle by showing them how to partialize the problem and how to get rid of negative feelings and eventually turn them into positive ones.
Five was the minimum number of sessions that showed some progress and according to the study, 79%of the people managed to go through the dental procedure without sedatives. There are many dentists who claim that calming and reassuring conversation with a patient can help overcome the fear but if people find themselves getting nervous even thinking of going to the dentist’s or if their palms start sweating the moment they enter the dentistry, there is very little chance that they can be relieved just with conversation. It is not the matter of distrusting their dentist, it is a type of fear that is very difficult to subdue or control and people would rather wait at the latest when they know they will have to be sedated, than go to the dentist’s before the situation gets worse. So, 79% of success is high enough rate to try this therapy and hope it will work.