Virtual reality premedication in dental procedures
Tomasz Kupka · Journal of Dental Health Oral Disorders and Therapy · 2022
The term "virtual" originates from Latin virtus "potency" which gained through ages the meaning from "capable of producing a certain effect, though not actually or in fact" to computer sense of "not physically existing but made appear by software".The term reality derived from Latin res "matter" means "actually existing, having physical existence".Thus, virtual reality is a simulated experience that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.The term "premedication", that means preliminary medication, originates from Latin prae "before" or limen "threshold/limit" and medication "heal/cure", yet its definition is not as simple as just those two words.Traditionally, premedication used pharmaceutical drug with a sedative, analgesic, as well as antibiotic, antiemetic or antihistamine before treatment/surgery.It is commonly associated with local or general anesthesia.Non-drug premedication, supporting the classic one, is including a variety of distraction methodologies, from calming to focusing multimodal stimulations, visual, auditory, tactile or olfactory ones.