PROBLEMS
& TRENDS
Current dental lights on the market require dental staff to constantly touch the lamp to readjust during a procedure. After adjusting the light, the technician goes right back to work in and around the patient’s mouth bringing any bacteria or viruses present on the light or handle back to the patient.
Surface contamination is a serious issue in healthcare settings, where lots of people gather. Virus survival on surfaces is limited because they are dependent on a host. For human coronaviruses, the link between surfaces and infection hasn’t been definitively proven—but scientists urge dental and medical personnel to remain cautious and maintain good hygiene.
Other pathogens aren’t as suited to this pathway. Since they are dependent on a host, virus survival on surfaces is limited. On their own, virus numbers can’t increase on a surface—only decline. For human coronaviruses, the link between surfaces and infection hasn’t been proven—but scientists urge us to remain cautious and maintain good hygiene.
The best way to stop surface-to-human transmission includes not touching surfaces, avoiding touching your face, and cleaning surfaces regularly.
When routinely cleaning and disinfecting, you should follow precautions listed on the disinfectant product label, which may include
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Wearing gloves (reusable or disposable)
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Having good ventilation by turning on a fan or opening a window to get fresh air into the room you’re cleaning
Washing your hands after removing your gloves.
To avoid spreading bacteria and viruses, you should wash your hands:
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Wash your hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds
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Follow normal preventive actions while at work and home, including washing hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, and avoiding touching eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.
It is especially important to wash hands:
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Before and after touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.
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Before and after entering or leaving a public place.
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Before and after touching your mask.
Respiratory droplets can land on surfaces and objects. It is possible that a person could get COVID-19 or another illness by touching a surface or object that has the virus or bacteria on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or eyes. This is a huge problem for current dental lights which require constant hand-to-surface and hand-to-mouth contact.
In coronavirus studies, the most resilient viruses took up residence on non-porous plastic and steel which is used for most dental lights. Infectious particles have been detected on both surfaces for up to 72 hours.​
As the restrictions lift and we return to normal, the population is much more mindful of surfaces and touching especially in dental or medical situations.
DISTRACTION AT ADJUSTING THE LAMP
Dentists and other dental technicians must adjust lamps constantly during exams and procedures. This takes time and distracts them from the procedure and patient.
The efficiency of operations in dentistry and in operating rooms is critical. Dentists, surgeons, and their assistants have more important things to tend to than adjusting a lamp, especially when physical contact with the surface of the lamp can spread bacteria and viruses.
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Physical contact with operating lamps spreads bacteria and viruses.
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Operating lamps need to be constantly adjusted, often requiring multiple readjustments to obtain optimal positioning.
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Current lamps on the market cannot adapt brightness and tone.
Together, these characteristics are distracting for dentists and requires constant monitoring, which can pull attention away from the patient and the procedure. A better option is needed!
THE IMPORTANCE OF LIGHT FOR DENTISTS
The dental profession is constantly experiencing changes, improvements, and new levels of innovation. The dental light plays an important role for the dentist, so its design should foster good vision and posture to the highest extent possible. The light pattern should first fully illuminate the oral cavity. This, in turn, fosters good posture and minimizes the need to reposition the light. Once these conditions are established, the dental light must deliver proper illumination to meet the needs of the particular user and the application.
Factors such as age, gender, and ethnicity can affect a user’s preference regarding “proper” illumination. Concurrently, the specific dental procedure affects desired illumination levels as well. Dental lights are used to deliver high-quality illumination to dentists and provide a true image with a reduced shadow white light that helps them match shades, identify various details and also helps them in diagnosing issues. Dental lights are in the form of both LED lights and halogen lights and come with various mounting configurations. Presently, LED lights are becoming popular with dentists due to the various benefits they possess.
The modality segment is fragmented into fixed dental lights and portable dental lights. The fixed dental lights market segment will witness considerable growth during the analysis period. These lights are uniform, and therefore there are no negative hotspots as compared to portable dental lights. Fixed dental lights are the most preferred lights among dental specialists due to the ease of convenience that accelerates segmental progression.
An overhead LED dental light offers the highest degree of uniform light, which illuminates the mouth with minimal shadowing. A-dec dental lights, for example, are engineered with a “stadium lighting” design that shines light from eight different directions. If one or two of these directions are blocked by an obstruction, the others cover for it. The result is exceptional illumination of the entire oral cavity with reduced eye fatigue.
In contrast, handpiece lighting creates a much smaller area of illumination, positioned to light the specific area being treated as the doctor’s hand moves.
Like lighted handpieces, headlights also offer directional task lighting. A headlight consistently illuminates exactly what the doctor is looking at because it shines on a parallel path to the doctor’s line of vision.
The Dental Robo Lamp keeps the best of all these types of lighting. The correct balance of lighting will assure better vision and health for the dental team, as well as more efficient procedures.
DON’T BLIND
PATIENT!
In the dental operatory, proper lighting is essential to delivering quality patient care and reducing dental team fatigue. Good clinical illumination helps the dental team clearly see anatomical features while maintaining a comfortable working posture. Adequate illumination during examinations and procedures is crucial to ensure important details are not overlooked by the naked eye. Requirements for good dental lighting may vary from procedure to procedure, but the basics are universal:
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Adequate brightness, to reduce eye fatigue. To reduce eye fatigue and improve productivity, a dental light must provide the ability to adjust illumination to deliver only the amount of light necessary based on the needs of the user and the procedure.
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Optimal colour rendering, to ensure an accurate diagnosis.
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Easy ergonomic positioning, to support a healthy posture. The dental light should be easy to position with a sufficient range of motion to accommodate illumination for all foreseeable procedures.
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While some practitioners will accept a light with two axes of rotation, light with three axes of positionality is preferable from an ergonomic point of view. The third axis allows the light to be positioned obliquely relative to the centerline of the patient. This is necessary to have shadow-free lighting in the mouth and make it possible for the dentist to move his or her head during treatment without forming shadows. The result is better posture and better vision while avoiding shadowing.
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Ultimately, a dental light should perform well enough that adjusting is not often required, and when it is, the motions are intuitive - nearly effortless. While LED technology has made it possible to develop a dental light with truly superior positioning, not all light designs have realized this opportunity.
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It should be possible to activate the light without touching it or causing the user to look away from the oral cavity.
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Easy and intuitive operation of light controls. LED technology enables modes that better support dental procedures (e.g., levels of illumination, cure-safe lighting). Yet dental clinicians rightly want to stay focused on the oral cavity and will not necessarily take the time to change a lighting mode.
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The new design must still meet the rigorous cleaning and disinfection protocols of modern dental environments. Touch surfaces must be minimized wherever possible
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without compromising intuitive activation and positioning
Most dentists have to adjust their vision to cope with the light conditions produced by the operating lamp and the ceiling lighting. Eyesight tends to deteriorate with age, meaning that our eyes require more light to see at the same degree. Eye strain, fatigue, headaches and environmental stress are all common afflictions, as well as neck and back strain. All of these can be prevented with the optimum lighting set-up to minimise the risk of strain while ensuring the most favourable view of the patient’s mouth.
The right dental lighting should strike a balance between providing enough high intensity illumination to enhance work precision, especially when it comes to procedures such as colour matching for restorations and cosmetic work, as well as reducing eye strain and improving energy levels as light can affect how tired you feel at the end of the day.