Perfect posture for the dental team (CD-ROM)

  • E. Paul
UK: Smile-on Ltd price £199.00+VAT or £189.00 for the online version. See http://www.smile-on.com

For over 25 years through his well known day courses, Ellis Paul has advocated the use of four-handed dentistry as an ergonomic solution for the dental team to minimise the risk of developing a musculoskeletal disorder.

At the start of this CD, members of the dental team (dentist, nurse and hygienist) are taken on a virtual tour of the 'Posture Practice'.

On arrival the team are told of the devastating effects back pain can result in if they do not work in this ergonomic manner. You could speak to fellow colleagues who are suffering with such a problem; however, what this CD does is educate you in how to overcome this problem by learning how to work comfortably in a tension-free manner.

The team are instructed in an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide on how to incorporate and adopt this way of working in their current practice. The topics covered are: perfect posture; prerequisites; variables to keep good posture; soft tissue retraction; instrument handling and transfer; clinical procedures; and resources.

At the end of each section you can test yourself to ensure that the topics covered have sunk in. You can also log on and off the program as desired, starting again at the last point.

The photographs and video footage are of an excellent quality making it easy to readily see the new skills being demonstrated. The feature I like the most is how each chapter allows you to steadily build on the basics you have learnt from the previous chapter. By the end, you feel confident enough to have seen how to incorporate the ergonomic solutions, allowing you and your team to adopt a perfect working posture.

Finally, you can test yourself to ensure that you can apply all the principles of four-handed dentistry with day-to-day clinical scenarios.

At completion, you can look at the resources section. Here you can open files that have useful aide memoirs, ranging from the common postural problems you may find yourself working in and how to overcome them, to a section on how to keep your posture fit and healthy with core stability exercises.

Overall, a truly excellent CD that is a must for the student starting on the clinical aspect of their career to the long established practitioner who wants to work in an efficient, productive, tension free posture. The aim of this CD is to minimise the effects of developing a musculoskeletal problem and I feel every member of the dental team should have this knowledge added to their belt of key skills for working in primary dental care.

Well done to Ellis Paul and the team at Smile-on productions for an informative, easy to use educational CD.