Pharmacological mythology? Or an evidence-based approach to the pharmacologically-challenged dental patient?

A number of fallacies and even fads and rarely facts have arisen in regard to catering to the medically-complex/pharmacologically-challenged dental patient. Dentists face an ever-increasing problem in addressing the needs of their medically-complex patients, given the increase in their numbers, with the advances in medicine, and the aging of the population, notwithstanding, their increased dental needs. Dentists usually approach such patients with a mixture of fear and trepidation--as undergraduates they had little direct experience in treating such patients, and as graduates, they often end up referring to hospital institutions such complex patients. This fear and trepidation can only be but reinforced by the increasing litigiousness of our society. This presentation will attempt to demystify some of these so-called medical complexities, and address the fallacies and fads that have arisen in the provision of safe dental care to these patients, and offer the facts (nothing but the facts), as to the appropriate management of the medically-complex dental patient. In addition, how an approach based on the concepts of evidence-based medicine/dentistry can actually be of help and the resources available for the dentist in the management of this ever expanding group of patients will be demonstrated.