Can smartphones help with dental pain? At first glance, the concept may sound far fetched. However, some of the greatest minds have begun developing a new diagnostic tool installed into a smartphone to help patients diagnose their tooth pain and seek out their dental treatment. With the ever-growing development of telemedicine and advancements in technology being made each year, we’re here to explore the possibilities with this newly developed tool that could help save people’s teeth ahead of time.
How Can Smartphones Diagnose Pain
According to a news press release, the National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research have awarded faculty members from the Uconn School of Dental Medicine a grant award for developing a patient-friendly smartphone sensor to measure tooth pain. Here are some of the fine details of this new project:
- They aim to develop the sensor to reliably allow patients to quantify their pain by measuring the sympathetic nervous system and detecting the conductivity of the skin.
- However, since the machine base for the sensor upgrade is the size of a laptop, faculty members will be working on this sensor to make it pocket-sized and commercially available.
How This Device Will Change Dentistry
By developing a smartphone sensor for measuring tooth pain, telemedicine services for those within rural and marginalized communities will receive more dental care ahead of time. Patients struggling with toothaches will be able to measure their pain on a scale that dentists can see and interact with, and help patients more effectively, reducing the risk of infections and save teeth.
