Effect of music therapy on adult patients undergoing dental treatment procedures

Considering that many individuals hesitate to visit the dental clinics and hence they tend to avoid visiting dental clinics. This hesitation is due to the stomatological anxiety. Therefore, anxiety may often lead to severe oral health issues. Anxiety of the patients sometimes may result in the failure to provide excellent dental care by the dental health care providers. Studies have shown that one sixth of the patients suffer with dental anxiety [1] Dental anxiety denotes a state of apprehension that something dreadful is going to happen in the dental treatment and is coupled with the sense of losing control [1]. It may also result in the misdiagnosis or improper treatment. Factors that mainly affect the anxiety are pain, bleeding, injections, rotary noise and smell of the medicines, other patients in the waiting room making noise or their past dental experience. There are a few treatment options to effectively reduce anxiety, they include pharmacological techniques like the use of benzodiazepines and antidepressants, hypnosis, biofeedback, etc. which may have side effects and drawbacks [2]. Music have been proven to have effects on medical conditions like Autism [3], Parkinson’s disease [4], Schizophrenia [5], Depression [6], Dementia [7] and other neurological disorders [8]. Music is believed to reduce anxiety by either having a relaxing or distraction effect that in turn reduces activity of the neuroendocrine and sympathetic nervous system [8]. Therefore, a unique study was done. Pulse being a direct measure of anxiety, pulse rate was used for the assessment of anxiety of the patients who were exposed to music compared to patients who were not exposed to music during the treatment threat of various objects in the dental office like the needles, sharp instruments and the rotaries, etc. and the analysis was done. Therefore this study evaluated the effect of music on anxious adult dental patients so that various pharmacological methods for reducing anxiety can be avoided.