Due to new restrictions on power instrumentation in the dental operatory, many dental hygienists are hand scaling more than ever before. While hand scaling may produce fewer aerosols than power instrumentation, it carries with it certain challenges, especially occupational pain. Even before the pandemic, 70% of dental hygienists reported hand, wrist, arm, and shoulder pain at some point throughout their careers.
The challenge in designing an ergonomic scaler is that much of a clinician's perception of comfort is subjective. To gather data for analysis, HuFriedyGroup turned to experts in many fields in the dental industry, and even designed their own custom sensor technology to collect information about pinch force and pressure. In the end, over 2.8 million data points were collected, and the Harmony Scaler was created. In this video, HuFriedyGroup Product Manager Erin Baumstark chats with Amber Auger, MPH, RDH, about what makes this instrument such an advancement.
