Predictors of post-operative pain in geriatric patients with dentin hypersensitivity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22811570Keywords:
dentin hypersensitivity, geriatric dentistry, post-operative pain, pain catastrophizing, gingival recessionAbstract
Background: Dentin hypersensitivity prevalence declines with age as tubule sclerosis raises the pain threshold, yet symptomatic geriatric patients often carry a larger burden of exposed root dentin from recession and cervical lesions than younger patients [9,14].
Objective: This review synthesizes evidence on predictors of post-operative pain after restorative or desensitizing treatment of dentin hypersensitivity in older adults, across local-tissue, psychological, and procedural domains.
Methods: We synthesized cross-sectional prevalence studies, desensitizing-treatment trials, post-operative pain prediction studies, and geriatric pain-assessment literature via PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane, using narrative rather than meta-analytic synthesis given sparse geriatric-specific data.
Findings: Anxiety and catastrophizing predict procedural pain [16,17], invasiveness predicts implant and extraction pain [19,20], lesion burden increases exposed dentin [14,15], and cognitive impairment undermines self-report [21,22].
Conclusions: Procedural predictors are the most actionable lever available to clinicians managing geriatric dentin hypersensitivity today, while psychological predictors need prospective, cognitively-stratified studies before extrapolation to this population [16,21].
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