The utilization of dental skills in non-dental situations

The development of electronic control systems has enabled severely physically handicapped people to revolutionize their lives by using any minimal residual movements they may have to operate micro-switches linking them with typewriters and other environmetal controls. Technical skills of a high order are required in making the unique splint or interface which links the switches with these residual movements whether of the tongue, lips, chin, eyebrow, finger or toe. Through the initiative of the Cordent Trust and generous financial support from the Leverhulme Trust a mobile laboratory was designed and built and a dental technician appointed for a three-year development project in the use of these switches as it was felt that his experience was particularly appropriate to the work and would also demonstrate how dental skills can be used to bring about a degree of rehabilitation far beyond the oral environment.