Improving Clinician Communication through Action Research.

There are many challenges to interdisciplinary communication in home care. Management often takes a top-down approach, instructing home care clinicians on methods to improve communication. In this pretest-posttest intervention study, a bottom-up approach was taken using a focus group to allow home care clinicians to identify, develop, and implement strategies to share critical clinical and social information. The participants in the intervention group were compared with a control group who did not participate in the focus group. We found that empowering home care clinicians to develop strategies to improve interdisciplinary communication was beneficial in improving interdisciplinary collaboration. Actively involving home care clinicians in identifying issues and developing solutions may lead to improved collaboration.

Oral defensiveness: children with a dysfunction of sensory regulation.

Oral defensiveness is a relatively newly discussed cluster of behavioral symptoms with a theorized physiological basis, which may manifest itself during a child's dental visit. Dentists aware of oral defensiveness and its distinct manifestations will be able to discuss with their patient's parents regarding this condition and if necessary modify their approach when treating children diagnosed with oral defensiveness. The purposes of this paper are to acquaint dentists with this controversial disorder, to increase awareness of its occurrence, and to suggest possible interventions for alleviating aversive responses to typical dental experiences when no other cause is apparent. A review of pertinent literature is presented. A list of characteristics and a list of other types of sensory defensiveness are also presented.