How Dental Assistants Handle Drug Users
http://www.healthmedicalresources.com/articles/107/1/How-Dental-Assistants-Handle-Drug-Users/Page1.html
Chia Moses
By Chia Moses
Published on September 23rd, 2008
As a Dental Assistant, you will have to deal with a different types of patients. More than 10.5 million people in the United States are suffering from drug or alcohol abuse.
How Dental Assistants Handle Drug Users
As a Dental Assistant, you will have to deal with a different types of patients. More than 10.5 million people in the United States are suffering from drug or alcohol abuse. A Dental Assistant can easily recognize a person who has suffered from substance abuse.
The different types of drug abuse that a Dental Assistant has to encounter are sedatives, barbiturates, and narcotics. Parents are often shocked to the core when a Dental Assistant informs them of the possibility that their child is suffering from drug dependency.
Drug dependency and effects on oral health are related to a huge extent. Consumption of drugs lead to evident oral health issues, such as missing dental appointments, cravings for sweets, the risk of infection from Hepatitis B and HIV, oral neglect, periodontal disease, gingivitis and painful gums. Drug consumers often attempt to obtain drugs from a dental facility by faking a dental problem. This can be either direct or in the form of a prescription for medical drugs.
It is essential for a Dental Assistant to be on the lookout for such situations. Such individuals are often seen to employ the trick of coming late at the closing time of the facility for an appointment and prescription. Since it's closing time and they cant have an immediate appointment, they request for the prescription to be filled and never show up again.
Dental Assistants should be adequately trained to detect such cases. If there is no such provision in your Dental Facility, then it is your responsibility as a Dental Assistant to address this issue and ask your employer to do the needful. One can train himself on topics, such as drug use, drug interactions and drug treatment, by going through information present on the Internet.
As a Dental Assistant, it is your duty to help your patients with drug-related problems as well. One can suggest a treatment and inform of the dangers of continued drug abuse. Effective communication skills play a huge role in such situations.
One also needs to be alert while performing a dental procedure on a drug user, since there is a chance of violence or a harmful chemical reaction when the patient is given local anesthesia.
There are also greater risks of exposure to communicable diseases, when you are treating a drug user, and hence, you should take adequate precautions. If you suspect a patient to be a drug-user, then you should approach the situation confidently and carefully. One has to be even more alert than usual in such a case.
If you feel there is risk involved then you may exercise the right to refuse a patient from any dental procedure. Instincts are a major tool, when a Dental Assistant has to handle the case of a drug user.
The different types of drug abuse that a Dental Assistant has to encounter are sedatives, barbiturates, and narcotics. Parents are often shocked to the core when a Dental Assistant informs them of the possibility that their child is suffering from drug dependency.
Drug dependency and effects on oral health are related to a huge extent. Consumption of drugs lead to evident oral health issues, such as missing dental appointments, cravings for sweets, the risk of infection from Hepatitis B and HIV, oral neglect, periodontal disease, gingivitis and painful gums. Drug consumers often attempt to obtain drugs from a dental facility by faking a dental problem. This can be either direct or in the form of a prescription for medical drugs.
It is essential for a Dental Assistant to be on the lookout for such situations. Such individuals are often seen to employ the trick of coming late at the closing time of the facility for an appointment and prescription. Since it's closing time and they cant have an immediate appointment, they request for the prescription to be filled and never show up again.
Dental Assistants should be adequately trained to detect such cases. If there is no such provision in your Dental Facility, then it is your responsibility as a Dental Assistant to address this issue and ask your employer to do the needful. One can train himself on topics, such as drug use, drug interactions and drug treatment, by going through information present on the Internet.
As a Dental Assistant, it is your duty to help your patients with drug-related problems as well. One can suggest a treatment and inform of the dangers of continued drug abuse. Effective communication skills play a huge role in such situations.
One also needs to be alert while performing a dental procedure on a drug user, since there is a chance of violence or a harmful chemical reaction when the patient is given local anesthesia.
There are also greater risks of exposure to communicable diseases, when you are treating a drug user, and hence, you should take adequate precautions. If you suspect a patient to be a drug-user, then you should approach the situation confidently and carefully. One has to be even more alert than usual in such a case.
If you feel there is risk involved then you may exercise the right to refuse a patient from any dental procedure. Instincts are a major tool, when a Dental Assistant has to handle the case of a drug user.