[Dental anxiety and alexithymia; research on anxiety acquisition].

People with alexithymia have difficulty identifying and describing feelings, have little imagination and mental processes largely orientated towards facts and less towards inner experience. It occurs in about 1 in 10 people and therefore in the dental office, too. A positive association has been found between alexithymia and the development of dental anxiety.

[Diagnosis and treatment of dental anxiety].

Fear of dental treatment is a common phenomenon. Every oral health care provider will have to treat a patient with this fear one day. Adequate diagnostics are essential for a correct assessment of the level of fear and how an anxious patient can best be helped.

[Online survey on dental anxiety results].

In the months leading up to this special on 'dental anxiety', an online survey was conducted on various aspects of the treatment of anxious patients. This survey was completed by 128 people, of whom approximately one third were men and two thirds were women. The results show that more than half of the respondents feel they haven't learned enough about treating anxious patients during the training.

Shared Genetics of Temporomandibular Disorder Pain and Neck Pain: Results of a Twin Study.

Aims: (1) To examine the heritability of TMD pain and of neck pain; and (2) to estimate the potential overlap in genetic and environmental factors influencing TMD pain and neck pain.

Methods: Data from 2,238 adult female twins who completed a survey on TMD pain and neck pain were analyzed. The total variance of TMD pain and neck pain was decomposed into variance attributable to additive genetic effects and nonshared environmental effects.

[A study to determine possible success variables in the treatment of gag reflex patients].

A disproportionately sensitive gag reflex can hamper adequate dental treatment. Because an evidence-based treatment for this condition is lacking at this moment, a study of patients and success variables for the treatment was carried out. The study was based on the clinical records of and interviews with 40 people who had been treated in a Centre for Special Dental Care (CBT) because of extreme gag problems two years earlier.