About Dental Tools

Dental tools are critical for completing a wide range of oral care procedures in the general dentist and specialty dentist setting. Dentists are licensed health care professionals who diagnose and treat problems with the teeth and tissues in patients' mouths. They must complete at least four years of dental school training during which they are trained to use dental instruments.

Examination Tools

• Dentists frequently use tools in the basic dental setup -- the mouth mirror, explorer and cotton pliers. Dentists use the mouth mirror to see areas of the mouth they cannot see directly as well as to reflect light, retract the teeth during a procedure and protect the tongue during treatment. The explorer allows a dentist to distinguish areas of decay or calculus -- also known as hardened plaque, a soft, sticky substance on the teeth that forms when people eat. Cotton pliers are used to place and retrieve small objects, such as cotton pellets.

Periodontal Tools

• Periodontics involves treatment of diseases of the supporting tissues of teeth. Dentists use a periodontal probe to measure the depth of the pockets around each of a patient's teeth to determine the condition of the patient's gums. In addition, scalers remove calculus above the gum line; and curettes remove calculus below the gum line and smooth rough root surfaces. Another periodontal dental tool is an ultrasonic scaler, which converts high-frequency sound waves into mechanical energy in the form of vibrations to more easily remove calculus from teeth.

Oral Surgery Tools

• Dentists who remove problem teeth and perform oral surgery use tools such as elevators. An elevator detaches gum tissue from around teeth so the dentist can remove the teeth. Dentists use forceps to grasp teeth, and they use surgical curettes to scrape the inside of a socket from which they removed a tooth so as to get rid of any diseased tissue in the socket. In addition, scalpels are surgical knives used to make incisions in the tissue during surgery while causing the least amount of trauma.

Endodontic Tools

• When a patient needs a root canal -- the removal of the inflamed soft tissues inside the root of a tooth, or the pulp -- dentists use other types of tools. For example, an electric pulp tester tells a dentist whether a tooth is vital or whether it is dead -- an indication that it needs root canal therapy. In addition, dentists use files to clean and shape a root canal. They use spreaders and pluggers to pack a rubber compound, called gutta-percha, into the root canal to seal it up.