Hand Scaling: Biggest Challenges Addressed
Ergonomic Challenges
Ergonomics is about honoring and respecting the body's unique capabilities and limitations and adjusting the workplace to support them. Most hygienists are provided a fixed operatory and a patient and they adjust their bodies to what is provided. This often leads to them holding static, awkward postures, bending, twisting, reaching, and performing repetitive motions during patient care.
Patient Positioning
A common mistake by dental hygienists is not adjusting the patient chair or the patient depending on the area they’re treating. Taking the time to properly position the patient chair and patient will significantly reduce fatigue and pain. In addition, proper patient positioning will allow greater adoption of neutral posture and reduce harmful body movements, such as bending and twisting, that increase the likelihood of MSDs.
Equipment Placement
Another aspect for dental hygienists to consider is placement of their equipment. As a general rule, it is crucial to keep the most used instruments and equipment close to the hygienist’s body to decrease the need for reaching and leaning. This means the instruments, air/water, suction, and ultrasonic are close. In addition, since a typical hygiene appointment involves adopting different clock positions, hygienists must move their equipment in order to keep it close.
Stretching
Practicing dental hygiene involves holding static, awkward postures for an extended period. This isometrically contracts muscles, which causes the intramuscular pressure to rise. This rise in pressure prevents oxygen and blood flow to the muscles, which would otherwise repair cellular trauma incurred when holding these postures.
Instrument Sharpening Manual
Instruments should be kept sharp and true to their original design. In addition, dental procedures are most effective with sharp instruments. Keeping instruments sharp improves the following:
- Improve calculus removal
- Reduce fatigue
- Save time
- Improve tactile sensitivity
- Minimize patient discomfort
Download the "It's About Time" Sharpening Manual to know what the ideal steps and timeline are to sharpen instruments after seeing the first sign on dullness.
Effective and efficient removal of posterior interproximal calculus
Designed for removal of light to heavy deposits, Sickle Scalers are available for anterior or posterior applications. Anterior Sickle Scalers feature straight shanks while posterior ones have curved or contra-angled shanks for optimal access. Sickle Scalers are designed primarily for removal of interproximal supragingival calculus but can also be used on calculus located just below the gingival margin.
Download the Nevi Scaler Brochure to learn more on effective and efficient removal of posterior interproximal calculus.
How to avoid burnished calculus
Residual burnished calculus is a significant, persistent problem for all clinicians who perform non-surgical periodontal instrumentation. Detecting and removing burnished calculus is one of the most frustrating and challenging tasks clinicians face. The best way to solve this problem is to avoid creating burnished calculus (in the first place or initially) by understanding its origins.
Read and comment on the ‘Three Tips to Avoid Burnished Calculus’ article on the free established online dental hygiene community, Friend of Hu-Friedy or download the article.
