Skeletal muscle disorders associated with dysergonomic postures in dental practice

Abstract

Dentistry is a highly demanding profession, because in daily professional practice it requires prolonged working time; where the functions performed by the dentist involve maintaining static or dynamic positions, accompanied by repetitive movements, to which is added the use of vibrating or rotating instruments and application of forces depending on the type of treatment, which can cause an inadvertent adoption of dysergonomic postures that after a while become part of the work routine and can develop skeletal muscle disorders (MSD’S). It is important to have a clear knowledge of these disorders, both students and dental professionals, which will be reflected in a better quality of life and therefore better care for their patients. The methodology applied consisted of a bibliographic review in the scientific database of Google Scholar and at the same time journals such as Scielo and international dental university journals were visited, with the aim of continuing to give importance to MSDs and motivating the development of future research to solve this health problem. From this bibliographic review it is concluded that there is an inadequate adoption of postures in dentists worldwide and that MSDs can end up putting the health of the professional at risk to the point of causing early retirement from the profession, knowing that the most frequent disorders are musculoskeletal pain (MSP), carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and shoulder tendinitis.