Introduction to dental local anaesthesia

This session provides an overview of dental local anaesthesia. Much of the information will be revision of basic principles from undergraduate training. The session describes the techniques available to achieve local anaesthesia for dental procedures, and then goes on to demonstrate how local anaesthetic agents are classified and what their ideal properties are.

Learning objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• define the term 'local anaesthesia'

• describe the techniques and equipment used in dental practice to achieve local anaesthesia

• list the ideal properties of local anaesthetic agents
• explain how local anaesthetic agents are classified