A PSYCHIATRIC APPROACH TO PAIN MANAGEMENT IN ELDERLY PATIENTS UNDER DENTAL TREATMENT

• Main Authors: Catalin Plesea-Condratovici, Lucian Stefan Burlea, Diana Bulgaru Iliescu, Jana Chihai, Luiza Nechita
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Romanian Society of Oral Rehabilitation 2018-04-01
• Series: Romanian Journal of Oral Rehabilitation
• Subjects: analgesia; dentistry; elderly; management; mental disorders; pain
• Online Access: http://www.rjor.ro/a-psychiatric-approach-to-pain-management-in-elderly-patients-under-dental-treatment/?lang=ro
• ISSN: 2066-7000; 2066-7000

Management is the art to achieve goals using work, the intellect, the behavior of other people; it is a necessity imposed by the introduction and study of a new discipline that will contribute to a better organization of the health system and to the improvement of the quality of healthcare and of human health. Knowledge of management functions is the key to a successful activity. Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience, generated by real or potential tissue damage, and having a multifactorial and multidimensional nature. The objectives of establishing effective analgesic therapy are: to improve the patient’s comfort and quality of care and to facilitate complete recovery. Human psyche, consciousness, takes shape gradually from birth to the end of life and one cannot know what one has not been taught or has not learned; one cannot understand something as long as the circumstances and education have not provided the appropriate means. The entire content of psychic, intellectual and emotional life is borrowed from social reality through activities and self-education. Skills are developed gradually through practice, their quality depending directly on the duration and quality of the practice. Necessities evolve in relation to the items we consume or use and the activities we undertake. Our feelings are modeled on the social relations in which we engage. Even goals, that would seem to have as a source the depths of our being, are actually learned in the context of human existence. The capacity of voluntary exercise also depends on the lifestyle and activity experienced by the human being as a child, a young person or an elderly one. Although mental disorders in the elderly have some special features, they do not differ substantially from the ones in younger adults. What distinguishes elderly psychiatric patients from other patients is their needs. Material and method: The sample investigation includes a total of 57 cases to have dental treatment at the University Clinic of Dentistry in Iasi. The sample includes 24 women (42.10%) and 33 men (57.89%). Results and discussion: Although finally realized, pain remains up to this day difficult to quantify, mainly due to the involvement of a major affective component with a high degree of subjectivity; it is a matter of evolutionary physiology; the sensitivity to pain is considered to be an acquisition of phylogenesis, even if limited in some lineages. Conclusions: The majority of anxious patients present to a dentist in the final stage of development of a dental periodontal disease or after repeated painful crises of a condition of the pulp; no anxious patient is willing to treat carious lesions.