ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and retentiveness of various communication methods among speech and hearing impaired patients and dental practitioners. Materials and Methods: A group of 33 school participants were selected for this study. An experimental task required the participants to follow routine dental instructions in the form of videotape and photographic charts and answer the questionnaire based on visual instructions. School participants were visited two times at an interval of 1 month. Participants were randomly divided into three groups, each consisting of 11 school participants, irrespective of gender and age. Group 1 received visual instructions without showing video and charts, Group 2 received video instructions, and Group 3 received photographic instructions. The questionnaires were assessed immediately and after 1 month. Results: The study results were assessed in terms of improvement in knowledge concerning communication skills and long-term retention of the instructions for 1 month. ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey test revealed a significant difference between Group 1 and other groups. However, there was no statistically significant difference between Group 2 and Group 3. The paired t-test revealed that there was a significant difference between the two visits in Group 1. However, there was no significant difference between visit 1 and visit 2 in Group 2 and Group 3. Conclusion: Health-care workers and patients with special needs like hearing-impaired patients should overcome communication barriers that may hinder proper diagnosis and treatment planning.
ABSTRACT
The success of dental implants has long been established through various studies with a particular emphasis laid on an implant design. Crest module is that portion of a two-piece metal dental implant, designed to hold the prosthetic components in place and to create a transition zone to the load bearing implant body. Its design, position in relation to the alveolar crest, and an abutment implant interface makes us believe that, it has a major role in integration to both hard and soft tissues. Unfortunately, in most clinical conditions, early tissue breakdown leading to soft tissue and hard tissue loss begins at this region. Early crestal bone loss is usually highest during the first year after placement ranging from 0.9 to 1.6mm and averaged 0.05-0.13mm in the subsequent years . Various hypotheses have been stated to reason it however, none has been proved convincingly. In light of this, various attempts have been made to overcome this undesirable bone loss, by varying an implant design, the position, surgical protocol, and the prosthetic options. Irrespective of an implant system and designs that are used, crestal bone loss of up to the first thread is often observed. The purpose of this review is to look into the various designs and treatment modalities, which have been introduced into the crest module of an implant body to achieve the best biomechanical and esthetic result.