Journal of Dental and Orofacial Research
  • Year: 2015
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue: 1

Teledentistry: A Review on its Present Status and Future Perspectives

  • Author:
  • Syed Sarosh Mahdi1, Manuele Mancini2, Rizwan Nadim3, Francesco Amenta4
  • Total Page Count: 7
  • Page Number: 45 to 51

1Student, Department of Life Sciences (E-Health & Telemedicine), University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy

2Dental Consultant, Fondazione Centro Internazionale Radio Medico (C.I.R.M.), Rome, Italy

3Assistant Professor, Department of Community Dentistry, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan

4Professor and Director, Department of Telemedicine and Telepharmacy, School of Medicinal and Health Products Sciences, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy

Online published on 18 January, 2019.

Abstract

The review paper is an effort to shed light on the main practical applications of teledentistry for emphasizing potentialities, problems, and applications of this relatively new branch of oral medicine. The paper also highlighted gaps in knowledge and possible future avenues of research on the topic. A systemic review on teledentistry based applications was conducted. The review is an eff ort to illustrate the current understanding on teledentistry based interventions and dental education programs. A general search was done for relevant books, articles and online matter on the selected topic. Various sources were accessed in order to identify key literature relating to the topic for exploration; the keywords that were used are “internet, information technology, telemedicine, telediagnosis, teledentistry, computer assisted learning, systematic review.” Database that were used for the literature included British Medical Journal, Oxford Journal, Boimed, CINHAL, PubMed and Medline search engine, all these databases were accessed from various internet databases. After doing a refined and advanced search, the researcher conducted manual search and read the abstract of more than 300 related articles which had keywords in their abstract or title and managed to review articles from last 20 years. As with all new innovations and technologies, there are some barriers to the eff ective use of teledentistry based interventions, these barriers were also discussed. The review has also elucidated uses of teledentistry in various fields of dentistry including oral surgery, orthodontics, and prosthodontics.