Sedation for dental procedures

Sedation is a technique that can be employed to assist selected patients to undergo dental procedures that may otherwise be difficult for them to tolerate in a fully conscious state. Safe sedation requires attention to patient selection, the clinical environment, level of physiological monitoring, sedation technique, and postoperative management. Various sedative pharmacological agents are available, and can be used alone or in combination. General anaesthetic agents used in lower doses for this purpose should be short-acting and carefully titrated, to allow fine control of sedation and a greater chance of success. Inadvertent overdosage is a potential risk, therefore, these particular agents must be administered by an anaesthetist. Alternatively, Entonox and oral or intravenous benzodiazepines can be safely administered by other appropriately trained practitioners.