Dentistry is in a unique position among the health care professions to assess and manage the patient with controlled substance risk. The concern over opioid risk is not new, and historically dentists have had to balance the critical need for adequate pain care with the importance of recognizing the consequences of using controlled substances for their patients. Barriers for providing adequate patient assessment and management may be greater in dentistry than other health care fields, although these barriers can be recognized and overcome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToday's collaborations across fields of health and wellness are insufficient to meet societies' challenges in combating disease and maintaining the ecosystem and public health. In this article, we present a One Health curriculum model designed to encourage undergraduate students of varying disciplines to value the connectedness of animals, humans, and the environment and to think innovatively about solutions to priority global health issues. We present the design and implementation of a course that brought together multiple faculty from different fields of study, including the dental, medical, nutrition, and veterinary schools, in a curriculum designed for undergraduates primarily from Arts & Sciences fields.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe primary headaches are composed of multiple entities that cause episodic and chronic head pain in the absence of an underlying pathologic process, disease, or traumatic injury. The most common of these are migraine, tension-type headache, and the trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias. This article reviews the clinical presentation, pathophysiology, and treatment of each to help in differential diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOral Maxillofac Surg Clin North Am
August 2016
This article describes a model of opiate risk stratification with a special focus on dentistry and oral surgery. A brief overview covers the scope of the US opioid abuse and misuse epidemic, and the role of the dentist in mitigating the problems of diversion and misuse of controlled substances. The expanding role of dentistry is summarized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The neurologist is very familiar with the painful neuropathies of the trunk and extremities but, generally, to a lesser extent with those of the head and face. Of the latter, the neurologist is particularly familiar with ophthalmic zoster and trigeminal neuralgia.
Review Summary: This review deals with neuropathic orofacial pain: (1) to highlight its presentation; and (2) to contrast it with that of neuropathic pain elsewhere in the body, including the head, from which it seems to differ significantly.
Like headache, the etiology of orofacial pain is often an enigma. Orofacial pain resulting from invasive dental procedure may cause a patient to present to a neurologist for diagnosis and treatment. The cases presented here were personally seen by the first author, a consulting neurologist; they illustrate the diversity in clinical presentation and the differences between a musculoskeletal and neuropathic origin of pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF