The mere sight of that needle is enough to make patients squirm in their chairs. Fact is pain, or the mere prospect of an injection, keeps half of Americans away from the dentist. For the last seven years, Dr. Steven Goldberg, a Florida dentist who attended the University of Pennsylvania more than 20 years ago, has been researching and developing a way to reduce the pain and those fears. This will certainly help people who have been afraid of going to the dentist for many years. It is essential that people visit the dentist for regular checkups, however, there are those who do not have a regular dental practice they go to, that is why it is important for people to check out a website like oakstreet.dental to see how they can be assisted. Who knows, maybe this pain-reducing treatment will expand across the other states.
Thanks to a collaboration with highly touted Philadelphia design and product development firm Bresslergroup and Allentown medical device manufacturer Sanbor Medical, relief is in sight. Goldberg s DentalVibe is a hand-held device that rapidly vibrates the gum tissue surrounding the injection site, helping patients receive pain-free injections.
The product officially launched in late last month at the American Dental Association s mid-winter meeting in Chicago and was met with much fanfare, not to mention the safety-related approval of dental law firms as well (you can check out dandykat.com/dental-attorney).
This single product is definitely going to change dentistry forever, says Goldberg. The fear wil be gone once dentists use this. I ve used a modified version on patients for seven years and they won t let me give an injection without it.
Since the act of giving an injection won t be changing anytime soon–it still has to be delivered under the tissue to get to a nerve–Goldberg focused on existing modifying existing tactics and tools. He based DentalVibe on the gate control theory of pain developed by Dr. Robert Melzack in the 1960s, which has stood the test of time and noted that touch or vibration travels along certain paths to the brain nearly 40 percent faster than the sensation of pain. Goldberg has spoken to Melzack, who endorsed his application of the theory.
Bressler s ability to incorporate the vibration to just the tip of an existing device ensures the vibrations, not the pain of injection, are processed in the patient s brain.
Dr. Goldberg came to us with crude models and rough sketches and we had some experience in vibration in consumer and medical products so we had an understanding of how to turn it into an engineerable product, says Dave Schiff, Bressler s director of engineering who worked closely on the project.
The award-winning firm s contributions didn t stop there.
As a dentist, we’re used to looking at silver products or brushed aluminum, but through Bressler, I realized this is for the consumer and they want it to look soothing, so they made it white, says Goldberg. They also made it ergonomically designed to fit in dentists’ hands. The device is made to be a help for dentists as well as for their patients. It would majorly help patients who would opt for services like the ones similar to Beverly Hills dental implants and would definitely need to be placed under a normal dental local anesthetic during the procedure.
The revolutionary product costs $795 and replacement tips are a little more than $1 each. DentalVibe also offers distraction toys that affix to the device to help ease the moment for pediatric patients. Goldberg plans on writing articles and speaking about pain relief in dentistry and marketing the product to dental schools.
Source: Dr. Steven Goldberg; Dave Schiff, Bresslergroup
Writer: Joe Petrucci