It’s common for children to experience a bit of anxiety about taking a trip to the dentist. Children with no experience with dental care may feel nervous and concerned about what it all means. Even children with a healthy relationship with dental care can get nervous if a new procedure arises. Helping to ease children’s worries can be as easy as ensuring they’re informed of what’s to come. It is even essential to have a dentist who knows how to work with children and manage their concerns. Tmsuk, a Japanese robotics company, has developed a pediatric dental robot to help improve dentists’ pediatric care skills.
Tmsuk has been developing medical robots for multiple different fields. These robots aim to improve providers’ educational opportunities in the medical industry. Their newest introduction to the dental field is a pediatric robot geared to mimic the behaviors of children in the dental chair. Using special pneumatic devices, they can flinch, open and close their mouth randomly, and fidget at inopportune moments. This is accomplished using proportional pressure regulators and piezo-crystal technology to achieve smooth operation.
Dental assistants and dentists alike will be able to benefit from the greater degree of expertise this device can provide. The educator can program the robot to require being gently held down during the treatment to prevent wriggling. Unfortunately, dentists occasionally work with difficult patients who may require support to remain still throughout a procedure.
The robot also contains technology that allows it to mimic complications during child care. These include moments when the child slips unconscious, goes into shock, or has a sudden drop in blood pressure. Dentists must know how to respond to these moments quickly and effectively.
When designing the robot, Tmsuk wanted to ensure that it was priced to be affordable to educational institutions. Without being accessible for multiple tiers of education and training, their intended audience would never be able to benefit from it. As a result, they were careful to ensure that they kept the price point as low as possible. This has put the new pediatric dental robot well into the reach of many dental education organizations and facilities. Every year more patients and dentists benefit from an education using the Tmsuk pediatric robot.
Advances in robotics have made the development of this educational robot a reality. Within the robot’s frame can be found multiple pneumatic (air-drive) devices that help to produce the desired movements and reactions. They’re designed to efficiently and safely use a minimum of pneumatic pressure while producing significant responses. Piezo-electric crystals have been used for decades, but the designers expertly integrated them into this device to produce next-gen results. Technology like this continues to change the face of dental care globally. Talk to your dentist to find out if their training included the Tmsuk pediatric robot.
