The world is battling Covid-19. Dentists are still trying to give the best to their patients despite the challenges. Dental clinics have been trying to keep up with the added pressures of delivering the best care to their patients. This even during such unprecedented times.

At Zen Dental Studio, we have continued to invest in new equipment. Aerosols are tiny droplets of water produced in every dental clinic. They occur with the use of handpieces, ultrasonic scalers, and other instruments. Our new equipment completely changes how these aerosols are generated and captured. The “spray” generated by a wide variety of equipment not only carries particles of water but also bacteria, viruses, blood, and saliva. This is of course not ideal which is why we have invested in our newest piece of equipment.

We believe that one of our most important responsibilities is to protect our patients and our staff. Reducing these droplets (spatter, splatter, spray) is a great step towards that goal. The equipment has continuous suction occurring inside the mouth. This greatly reduces the production of harmful droplets. The system we have brought into the dental studio is called the Isovac system. It is specifically designed to provide continuous suction. With the result being a huge reduction in dental aerosol and splatter. The overall being the protection of the airway from accidental mishaps.

What is the Isovac system?

The Isovac system consists of a mouthpiece that is connected to the suction unit.

The connection is done by using a single-use sterile fitted mouthpiece specific to a patient’s mouth. This helps keep the tongue and cheek away from a dental handpiece or piece of equipment. In so doing it protects them from getting any injury. It also helps by continuously removing any water, saliva, and other aerosols in the mouth. It also prevents accidental ingestion of any of the small pieces of equipment used in the mouth. An added benefit is that it effectively provides comfort to the patient by giving a wedge for the teeth to bite on. This, in turn helps to relax the jaw.

What other benefits does the Isovac provide?

One of the common reasons old fillings or crowns fail is because of contamination of the filling or crown cement with saliva, water, and moisture. This contamination is due to inadequate isolation. Isovac prevents this from occuring. It does this through the prevention of saliva or water contaminating the filling or crown cement during the procedure.

What other measures do we take?

Every patient is screened for Covid 19 at our practice. We also conduct a temperature check and ask patients a series of questions. Patients have peroxide mouth rinses before any dental procedure. This helps to ensure that the mouth is clean and bacteria free. When carrying out surgical procedures, we use full personal protective equipment. This includes head caps, foot covers, gowns, sterile gloves, eyewear, and masks. This all goes to ensure the full safety of all our staff as well as our patients.

We use the best state-of-the-art sterilisation equipment whenever we sterilise equipment. Combined with tracking all equipment for every patient we are confident that our procedures are safe and help to protect you.

Of course it is important to us at Zen Dental Studio to make sure that our patients feel comfortable so if this raft of safety procedures makes you nervous please speak to us. We will be happy to explain why we have introduced these additional precautions.