Whole Notes On Dental Care: Managing Pain In The Dentist's Office Through Classical Music

Post date: Aug 30, 2017 5:3:51 PM

A trip to the dentist’s office is probably the most enduring poster child of medical pain. And for children, it might even be more dreadful an experience compared to going through a round of vaccinations. At the onset, there is something unavoidably drab and dismal about any medical office in general. Patients might already be simulating the experience of pain even before it happens.

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Music therapy has been used for other medical fields but has recently been studied and tested for dental trials, so a handful of literature exists. But there are some basic findings that can eventually lead to more solid proof of the capacity of classical music to alleviate pain one feels during stressful dental procedures.

Even if in reality musical experiences are hardly universal, people’s notions of consonance and dissonance reached a certain level of generalizability, primarily because of prolonged exposure to specific kinds of music that use the same scale system. The mostly consonant combinations perceived when listening to classical music, which many consider “pleasant,” might in processing and approaching pain in a different way.

Music, which is physically similar to other sounds, is distinguished from the rest of the lot because of the deliberateness of its structures. The high organization involved in samples of it, as performed by musicians, offers a stimulation quite different from noise. When a patient undergoing an excruciating dental procedure hears the music, it is possible for them to be stimulated consequently. The activity competes with the stimulation coming from the pain.

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Though the world may wait a bit longer for anything conclusive, it is still a good idea to play classical music in the dentist’s office for reasons other than just the management of pain. Any music (not necessarily classical) that might help in calming a person down should be a welcome treat for anyone trying to survive yet another root canal or tooth extraction.

Dr. Kami Hoss is a highly trained businessman and dentist who is also involved in various advocacies, from teaching children about good oral hygiene to supporting organizations to bring back classical music to schools. For more updates, follow this blog.