Dental health is essential to the overall health of human beings. Poor oral health can lead to serious health complications. For instance, it can lead to teeth decay and gum disease. It’s also believed to cause heart disease, dementia, diabetes, hypertension, and mouth cancer. Hence, always strive to boost your dental health.
There are some essential things people can do to maintain their dental health. These include brushing teeth regularly, eating nutritious diets, limiting sugar intake, and regularly visiting the dentist for checkups. For more insights about maintaining dental health, you can visit Familydentalhealth.com or any other similar sites.
Here are some emerging trends in the dental industry that dentists and patients should watch for:
- Voice Search
Voice search is one of the recent trends in the dental industry. It’s a technology that enables patients to record their voices when searching for information online instead of typing in words. This enables patients to find information faster than they could when typing in words. Search voice is also suitable for patients with disabilities in their hands.
When it comes to dentists, including a search voice tool in their websites helps connect with a wide audience, thus boosting their visibility. Therefore, voice search can benefit both patients and dentists.
- Teledentistry
Telemetry is another important emerging trend in the dental industry. It involves the use of communication technology to provide dental care services remotely. Instead of visiting a designated dental clinic, patients can utilize audio, video, and other communication software to connect or engage with their dentists.
Sometimes, a patient might want dental services that don’t involve complex processes like tooth extraction or root canal. The concerned patient can utilize teledentistry technology to communicate with the doctor and seek services in such a case. Some of these services include consultation, diagnosis, and dental education.
There are several benefits of adopting teledentistry technology. First, it boosts patients’ convenience because they can connect with their dentists from the comfort of their homes. Second, teledentistry helps patients save a lot of time. Initially, patients could spend several hours traveling from the upcountry to go and see a dentist in the town. Lastly, teledentistry enables patients to save a lot of money. With teledentistry, they won’t incur any traveling costs, which could affect their budget.
Besides, in most cases, online dental consultations are cheaper compared to visiting a doctor in a designated physical hospital.
- Chatbots
You all know the pain associated with oral health, especially when suffering from dental cavities. A patient will want an immediate response to their ailing problems in such a case. Even when not in pain, dental patients will want to wait for hours or days to have their problems resolved by a dentist. That’s why dental clinics are turning to chatbots.
A chatbot is a computer application that can simulate and process a human conversation. It enables patients to interact (both verbal and written) with digital devices as they could with real persons.
Medical chatbots can be useful to dental patients in various ways. They allow them to book appointments, get reminders for their appointments, and make payments. Apart from that, patients can interact with chatbots to help get useful information about their dental health. It helps them get self-services from a website. This goes a long way in boosting the experience of patients.
- Electronic Dental Records
Dental clinics are one of the sectors that deal with a lot of data. This includes both the hospital and patient information. Large files in the dental clinics occupy a lot of space, thus attracting a lot of costs. Besides, finding a single document from piles of files can consume a lot of time.
Also, if left in open places, physical dental documents can be accessed by unauthorized persons. That’s why most dental clinics are moving from physical documents to storing files in digital form. This involves using computer software to store and retrieve documents or records.
There are several benefits to storing dental documents in digital form. First, it eliminates the need for storage space. This goes a long way in helping reduce rental costs. Second, dental documents in digital form allow for better organization. When a patient visits a clinic, the dentist takes the least time possible to retrieve the required information. This helps save a lot of time, thus boosting patients’ experience.
Security is a major concern in the dental sector. This is true, especially when patients need their health information to remain confidential. One of the best ways to achieve this is by using an automated document management system.
A document management system prevents unauthorized persons from accessing the patients’ information. Only authorized people are given access passwords. This helps keep the records of patients and hospitals in general secure. Also, most automated document management systems utilize modern applications or tools to store files. This prevents hackers from accessing such documents.
- Intra-Oral Cameras
You all know how painful it can be when a dentist is trying to put objects in a patient’s mouth. Some of these objects are too sharp and can cause more injuries to the patient. That’s where power intra-oral cameras come in.
An intra-oral camera is a tiny object that a dentist uses to examine a patient’s mouth. It delivers real-time images and videos about the true condition of a patient’s mouth. It, therefore, enables the dentist to provide suitable medication to the patient.
Using intra-oral cameras can provide numerous benefits in the dental profession. For instance, they can help dentists detect issues without keeping the patient’s mouth open for several hours. They’re beneficial in preventive diagnosis and care. Plus, they can help educate patients about their teeth’s condition and proper oral hygiene.
- Screening Technology
One of the reasons people are encouraged to visit a dentist regularly is to help prevent future dental concerns. Some of these include oral cancers, tooth decay, loss of teeth, and others. When a patient loses their teeth, for instance, the self-esteem or confidence of such individuals tends to diminish. The good news is that the screening technology is here to help prevent potential future dental health issues.
Screening technology helps dentists examine their patients to help spot any symptom that could cause a future dental health-related problem. From there, they can advise or diagnose the patient to help avoid future health complications.
- Laser Dentistry
Laser dentistry is another emerging trend in the dental industry. It’s a practice of utilizing lasers to treat various dental health conditions. One of these is gum disease. In the past, treating gum disease required the dentist to cut and remove even the unaffected parts or tissues. This could cause more injuries to patients. Besides, such injuries could take a long time to get healed. The use of laser dentistry technology can help avoid this hassle.
The lasers enable dentists to only target and remove the affected part of the gum. This treatment isn’t painful. It promotes better blood circulation in the gums, thus allowing the patient to heal faster.
Because of this, using laser dentistry over other dental treatments is preferred because of the benefits they provide to patients. For example, there’s a decreased need for sutures when using lasers. With this procedure, anesthesia is less likely necessary. Since the laser can stabilize the affected area, there’s a lower chance of developing bacterial infections.
Moreover, using lasers in treating dental issues may result in less damage to the surrounding tissues and faster healing of wounds.
- Invisalign
Teeth misalignment is a major problem among dental patients. This is a condition where teeth grow in a crooked or overlapping manner. There are several challenges of misaligned teeth. They can interfere with proper chewing. Besides, cleaning overlapping teeth isn’t a walk in the park. Also, people with misaligned teeth have low self-esteem. Such people can overcome this problem by utilizing Invisalign technology.
Invisalign technology enables patients to use invisible braces to straighten their teeth. This eliminates the need to utilize heavy or metallic braces says this dentist who does orthodontics in Upper East Side
One of the benefits of using Invisalign braces is they’re easy to clean. Also, unlike metallic braces, the treatment doesn’t restrict what type of foods the patient should eat. That means with Invisalign in York, you’ve got the freedom to eat any food of your choice.
They’ve got the freedom to eat any food items.
But it’s essential to know that Invisalign is just one of the innovative orthodontic procedures the dental industry uses today. For instance, Invisalign is a preferred treatment for straightening teeth and correcting gaps and bite issues. When it comes to replacing missing teeth, dental implants are the sought-after and ideal orthodontic treatment for the situation.
Unfortunately, these procedures may cost a fortune, depending on several factors, such as the complexity of the treatment, the provider’s credentials, dental insurance coverage, and many more. But if you want to know more about the cost of dental implants and other procedures, you can check out reputable websites and online resources.
- Smart Toothbrush
Smart technology is everywhere. That’s why you always hear people talking of smartphones, smartwatches, smart houses, smart cars, and now, smart toothbrushes. As it sounds, a smart toothbrush is technology-enabled. In other words, it directs people when brushing their teeth. For instance, it can give feedback and provide education on how someone can improve their oral health.
Apart from that, a smart toothbrush eliminates the need to brush the teeth manually. It does the work for the user. This includes brushing and flossing. Someone using a smart toothbrush can hardly have a bad odor in the mouth. It thoroughly cleans the mouth to prevent plaque from forming in the teeth.
- Social Media In The Dental World
You could hardly see any post about dental on social media in the past. Today, things have changed. You’re likely to find dental information any time you sign in to your social media account.
Patients and dentists are both benefiting from social media technology. Patients, for instance, spend much of their time finding information, referrals, and clinics on social media. This helps them improve their dental and oral hygiene in general.
On the other hand, dentists utilize social media technology to share information and connect with patients. Some dental clinics couldn’t afford to connect with patients without social media.
Takeaway
The invention of modern technologies makes human life more flexible and comfortable. The dental industry has been lagging behind these back then, but most dentists have realized the need to implement modern trends. The things discussed in this article have a lot of benefits to both patients and dentists.