Local Anaesthetic and Client Management
I recently have been providing dental hygiene treatment to a client who has severe hypersensitivity. She also has a phobia of the dental office, especially of needles, but she is motivated to improve her oral health. This posed a huge problem for me because I couldn’t even probe her dentition without local anaesthetic. I thought that if I explained every step of the procedure to my client and gained her trust she would be more susceptible to having local anaesthetic administered. It worked, but while I was depositing the solution she began to scream. It was definitely alarming and it was an incident that I hadn’t experienced before. Luckily my clinical instructor was in my operatory and she held my clients hand while I calmly told her that she was “doing really well”. The screaming began to become quieter after I began speaking with my client, and was almost non- existent at the end of the injection. After it was finished I asked her if she was in pain, and shockingly she said she wasn’t, and claimed she screamed because it was invasive to her personal space. I realised that she was afraid of the idea of the needle and not the actual administration of it, and I spoke to her about this throughout the appointment to make the up-coming sessions go more smoothly. Client management and calming communication are extremely important in clinical practice to ensure that the patient feels comfortable.