When I was shadowing a dentist, I asked her about the air hand-pieces she uses. She said that they were quite loud and it inevitably will cause a significant amount of hearing loss to most dentists. There are also electric handpieces, which are extremely quiet but the problem is that they are enormous and difficult to use in certain procedures so she is forced to use the air-powered ones.
So my question to the dentists or dental students, what are your thoughts on this matter? Do you feel that your tools are damaging your hearing ability? Is there anyway to prevent hearing loss from dental equipment?
Really? Maybe the new school will have electric, but the ones we have right now are air powered. I have to admit, they are somewhat loud. If you used one all day long, you would definitely lose some hearing.
We are given both electric and air in our preclinic here at Maryland, and while the electric is slightly bigger I can only imagine very few situations where the air would fit but the electric would not.
-Cyrus
I looked at a number of studies briefly about this and they do seem to indicate that dentists do get gradual hearing loss over time. An easy fix would be special earplugs that block out the damaging noise from the drill but still allow you to hear people talking and other noises
My dad is a dental technician and he needs to make teeth everyday so he deals with all the loud hand pieces... and he says he can't seem to hear as well as he used to before he started this occupation (hes been at it for about 10 years now),,,but there could be other factors like age, stress, and who knows, maybe it's all in his head.... and ya i cant really think of ways to prevent it except for ear plugs, but its true that you need to hear other noises too =\
.Hello!.
.I havent heard about hearing loss from ..the hand pieces. I dont know properly about it because I use electric, and they are not huge..
.Thanks.
I would have to agree. I worked at an office where the dentists (approx 40 y/o) just bought loupes for the first time. Before the loupes, his head would be like in the pts mouth. now he stands nearly straight up away from the drill.
The real problem dentists need to worry about is back problems. .. .
