Dentalcompare
Clinical Director
One of the toughest things about practicing dentistry is seeing what you are working on. It's tough to do precision work in a deep, dark hole, filled with fluid, and in some cases, in constant motion. I have used different light attachments on my dental loupes to help me see better, and it certainly makes a difference over a traditional overhead light. The problem with those lights is that there is so much glare from the reflective surface that I can rarely turn it up high enough without blinding the patient. Plus, it would be nice to be able to see what I'm doing on the front teeth without curing the composite before it is placed.
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Enter the new operatory light from DentalEZ, the everLight. Unlike traditional halogen bulbs, the everLight features twelve separate LED lights. They accomplished several interesting things with this configuration. The first is that there doesn't seem to be any direct focal point for the light. I can place it higher above the patient so that the light itself isn't immediately adjacent to my forehead. Plus, it is completely cool. Regular lights heat up fast, but after a 2-hour implant procedure, the light was just as cool for me as when we started. And for your "green side", DentalEZ reports that it uses 70% less power than a halogen light.
The light comes with three different brightness settings. I typically have it set to the mid-range setting-- even that is brighter than a regular treatment room light can achieve. It is actually bright enough that I have forgotten to use the light on my loupes on occasion. There are also three different color settings. The first replicates outdoor light nicely. This is your "shade matching" setting when picking out the composite. The second setting is good for general use, and the third is a completely composite safe color. You can have this at the highest brightness, and not worry about your composite setting up... at all. It was nice to leave the light and have good vision of the veneers I was bonding, without worry of having the material cure.
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Three light settings simplify shade matching and prevent premature composite curing. |
So how have the patients reacted? I have actually gotten comments about the light. First and foremost is that the light is not blinding them, even on the highest setting. They also commented on the fact that made the room look a bit more high-tech, even without changing the chair itself. It was a nice upgrade considering the fact that the patients have to stare that direction the entire appointment anyway.
The only real issue we have had with the light was the installation. We did not have a DentalEZ patient chair, and the sizes of the light poles are different across the manufacturers. Because of this, they were not able to simply bring it in, and set it up right away. They do have a ceiling mount option, but I did not want to add the expense of a building contractor to my light upgrade. But I was impressed with the way that DentalEZ handled it. They took a look at my chair, took pictures for their engineers, and figured out a way to get it to attach without using twelve feet of duct tape. When I last spoke with them, they were actively working on mounting solutions for every other chair manufacturer out there. The most important point here is that you do not have to upgrade your entire chair to get the everLight.
I sometimes think of satisfaction with a new equipment purchase in terms of whether or not I would be able to go back to doing things the old way. In the case of the everLight, DentalEZ has made it easy to transition to something new, and incredibly difficult to think of going back to a standard operatory light.
Review Synopsis
Product
The everLight LED Operatory Light
The Good
Cool operation and 70% less energy use compared to traditional halogen lights.
The Bad
Not readily configured for every chair, but DentalEz engineers easily retrofit for chair mounting.
The Bottom Line
No patient blinding and exceptional visibility from any position.