Mine would be red even during a normal cleaning! LOL LED Head

I like this idea. I think that calibrating it for each patient will be the hardest part. As LED Head said above, he would have it on red all the time, where as I never get numbing injections or anything when I have cavities filled as the pain doesn\'t bother me at all... I also think that some consideration will have to be given to the fact that my hand strength would be very different than that of a young girl\'s and I would require much less pressure to achieve the same level of light as her. Perhaps the best idea would be to have a combination of user input and a heart or pulse monitor. I think also you have to take into account the dentist\'s experience in reading the body language of a patient. I think that this ability from years of practise would be a greater indication of discomfort to them. I also would do some testing with the location choice you have made, being around the neck. Some people would feel choked by it, and I wonder how obvious to the dentist the lights would be considering they are focused on what they are doing and it may be out of their cone of focal vision. Perhaps combining this idea with the LED dental mirror as a assistive technology would be a good way to go. howman

very nice idea !! user not found

Plus I think sedation dentistry is really catching on. You know, go in, get knocked out, get 10 years of dental work in an hour, wake up and go home. LED Head

Not here it isn\'t... The medical community will not allow it as far as I know. Having an anaesthetist supervised by a non surgeon is not something they allow here. They are really restrictive wit things like that. howman

Great concept, very good and simple regarding functionality and benefit. The only thing Id like to add from experience: Even though you dentist may be warned by the LED light that you are in great pain, I am not sure if he would - or could - care. Nevertheless there are countless possibilities for this. I am also thinking about animals: e.g. horses can hardly express when they feel pain and only real experts can figure it out due to the lack of signals like facial expressions and so on - stuff we\'re used to see when humans suffer. However, maybe you could teach them to use the light for communicating with you. diplomod

@diplomod - yep, that is my dentist... doesn\'t care how much it hurts... howman

Regarding precision, perhaps a larger scale of pain, consisting of 10 to 20 leds would give the dentist a better impression. There could be two differently calibrated control types for male or female patients according to their average handgrip strength. The idea of processing physiological parameters as heartbeat etc. leads straight into the high tech zone, I have a cheap and simple device in mind. This one could as well be used to express silent acceptance or refusal in public discussions or talkshows... grobi142