What This is All About

Dental World Second Supplement

What This is All About

Whether you connect with it best by thinking about on the personal level, or on the level of the nervous system, the theme of this material is that a focus on psychological comfort through an empathic, communicative connection is the keystone to the best treatment experience for patients.

All hygienists are trained to look after the physical comfort of their patients during treatment. But our best hygienists seemed magically capable of removing all traces of discomfort.

We asked them how, thinking they would talk about their soft touch, or some method of using their tools. This wasn’t the case, though.

Sure, sharp tools and a light touch matter, but the more we pressed the issue looking for those kinds of answers, the more a more interesting theme emerged in their answers:

“Comfort exists in the mind of the patient. We work on that.”

Basically, they said, all things being equal, it’s more about managing a patient’s mental state than doing (or not doing) something with your hands. Patients will tense up, hold their breath, hide discomfort, let their imaginations run wild about sounds and sensations, and end up physically hypersensitive and miserable if you let them.

If you don’t let that happen, however, you can do your job without their nervous system sabotaging you both.

What we found when we kept digging was that the secret was actually in the two-way connection that they used to work with and monitor the patient’s mental state. Our all-star hygienists weren’t just applying rules, they were present in the moment and actively trying to stay aware of what their patient was feeling.

When they first met a patient, they paid attention, looked and listened for cues in their patient’s tone of voice and body language. They used small talk to probe for more information about their state of mind and level of comfort and took special care to relax patients who seemed tense or nervous with soothing conversation before even putting the bib on them, knowing that a certain level of calm was necessary for comfort to happen at all.

At all times before and during treatment, our all-star hygienists were careful to communicate positivity with their presence, knowing that their energy would automatically, inevitably affect their patient’s energy and state of mind. They were always conscious of using a soothing tone of voice.

They understood that predictability is the seed of trust, understanding, and open communication, and so they made strong, obvious effort to narrate every step, no matter how small.

They knew it also has the benefit of helping patients see them as an ally rather than an antagonist, a guide and source of information whom they are comfortable asking questions about any small curiosities or discomforts they have, which represent uncertainties and anxieties that would otherwise pile up and contribute to discomfort, were they to sit silently through treatment.

These hygienists were careful with their language, knowing that words matter, and knowing that vocabulary alienates more than impresses. They were careful to be neutral or positive in their language in general. When describing or discussing dental situations, they used plain language and metaphors and analogies to day-to-day items and life, knowing it would be understood and remembered better, and knowing too, that, to non-medical people, clinical language often triggers needlessly fearful negative associations.

Basically, the secret was to keep the patient calm and openly communicative, taking care to create the connection with conversation and warm and open body language from the first moment on, keeping that communication open during treatment, and taking care to avoid anything that would make the patient retreat into their mind, where the strange sensations of treatment wouldn’t have the benefit of a compassionate hygienist’s interpretation and and accommodation.

These hygienists aimed to see that each patient had calm confidence in relying on them to contain surprises, limit the range of sensations below the threshold of pain, and to be implicitly aware of their need to breathe, swallow, and relax their jaw.

The end result was that their patients regularly reported “the best cleaning of their life.” They didn’t understand that they had been comfortable enough to be cooperative, they didn’t understand that their bodily anxiety was being managed, they just felt that they had received great care from competent, considerate people. Their respect was palpable, and, frankly, inspiring.

We wanted to provide as many “best cleaning of my life” experiences as possible. It’s a source of pride for our hygienists and for our practice, and it seems to be a lot of what brings in referrals. It will be for you, too.

And we think it’s important for the whole industry, too. The dental industry still has to contend with the many fears and negative associations which cause people to avoid engaging more in their oral health. The more patients who leave their visits happy, the better it is for everyone’s oral health and the dental and hygiene professions.