Reference no: EM133638393
Case Study 1. A Patient Experiencing Emotional Distress:
Your recall patient is a single parent of two children 12 and 14 years of age. She is returning to the office for treatment on her third quadrant of nonsurgical periodontal therapy with local anesthesia. The dental hygienist is happy to see that this patient is on the schedule for today because she is a delightful person who is excited about the results she is seeing with her periodontal treatment. Her treatment has been progressing very nicely, and she is an ideal patient.
Unfortunately, the patient is informed on the day of her dental visit that she will be laid off from her job in a month because of cutbacks in the company's budget. She, of course, is devastated when she hears the news and considers rescheduling her dental appointment, but she is unsure how much longer she will have dental insurance provided to her by the company.
The patient decides to keep her dental appointment, and because she does not like to burden others with her problems, she decides not to tell the dental hygienist about her bad news.
Questions
• How can the patient's bad news affect her pain reaction threshold?
• How can the patient's decision not to inform the dental hygienist of her emotional state affect the treatment scheduled for today?
Case Study 2.
The Patient Experiences Burning During the Injection A patient is in the office today for nonsurgical periodontal therapy. The dental hygienist is assembling the equipment when she drops the anesthetic cartridges on the floor. Concerned that she has contaminated the cartridges, she drops them into the disinfecting solution to clean them before she loads a cartridge in the syringe. Approximately 30 minutes later, the dental hygienist removes the cartridges from the disinfecting solution and loads the syringe without inspecting the cartridge. She administers an anterior superior alveolar (ASA) block to the patient, who immediately demonstrates signs of extreme discomfort. The dental hygienist removes and safely caps the needle and questions the patient regarding the discomfort. The patient expresses that she has never experienced such an intense burning sensation before when she received a local anesthetic. A few minutes later, the dental hygienist notices some swelling in the area of the injection.
Questions:
• Why was the patient experiencing burning during the injection?
• How could the dental hygienist have avoided this response?
• Why did the swelling occur?