Conscious
Sedation and General Anesthesia in Pediatric Dentistry
What is the need for sedation and general anesthesia in pediatric dentistry?
Under certain circumstances a dentist encounter children who are very uncooperative for various reasons. for example this
uncooperativeness can be because of fear of unknown previous traumatic dental experience mentally or physically handicapped children medically compromised children
pampered adamant children fear of separation from the parents child with severe pain related to tooth or recent trauma fear of tooth removal etc..
Under these circumstances the dentist first tries to identify the cause for the inappropriate
behaviour. Most often, once the cause is found the chances for providing dental treatment increases.
When this is not possible and there is an URGENT NEED to provide dental treatment a pediatric dentist can opt for this kind of management.
What is conscious sedation and general anesthesia?
In conscious sedation the patient is fast asleep but not completely
unconscious. These procedures are usually used for short dental procedures like one or two teeth removal or few fillings etc..
In general anesthesia the patient is completely unconscious and not aware of what is happening to her or
him. Under general anesthesia one can perform extensive dental procedures like multiple extractions (tooth removal) ,multiple fillings ,root canal
treatment, stainless steel crowns etc..
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