Dentistry students will practice giving anaesthetics to patients in virtual reality

It can be the most painful part of a visit — that anaesthetic prick after you sit down in the dentist’s chair.

A University of Newcastle application lets dentistry students practice giving anaesthetics in virtual reality.

It can be the most painful part of a visit — that anaesthetic prick after you sit down in the dentist’s chair.

However virtual reality (VR) is about to be used to hopefully make dentists even more highly skilled at numbing your gums, and reducing even further the pain of an anaesthetic.

The University of Newcastle has developed a virtual reality application where students put on a VR headset and practice giving anaesthetics in VR before they enter a patient clinic.

The University hopes the application will reduce the need for oral health therapy students to practice giving each other dental injections.

The application is the brainchild of Denise Higgins, lecturer in oral health, and simulation co-ordinator at the University.

“From listening to student feedback over the years, I knew they felt they were missing something between the theory and practising on their peers and patients,” Mrs Higgins says.

“Administering anaesthetic needles is an incredibly intricate process, and not something many feel confident doing without extensive practice.

“Ultimately, we want our patients to feel safe, comfortable and at-ease, which is why it’s crucial to ensure our students feel confident entering the patient clinic.”

Students put on an Oculus headset and are transported to a virtual dental clinic where a patient awaits them.

The university in a statement says students can try different scenarios in VR, including procedures requiring palatal injections to the roof of the mouth and interdental injections between the teeth.

A target point in VR gives students the ideal mark to place the needle, and a virtual gauge displays the millilitres being administered, it says.

In addition, the patient’s skin can be virtually scaled back to expose the working nerves and capillaries so that students can study anatomical features.

Innovation team manager Craig Williams says the virtual anaesthesia program was developed to imitate real-world situations students would face in the workplace.

“We’ve been able to replicate typical scenarios an oral health practitioner would perform on a daily basis — things like administering dental injections in areas that would help anaesthetise nerves for pain management and patient comfort,” he says.

It’s not the first application of VR to dentistry. Some dentists issue patients with VR headsets that display beach scenes and other distractive scenarios to lessen their anxiety in the dentist’s chair.