Dental glossary — terms beginning with N

General anaesthesia, induced sleep or anaesthesia. Depending on how major the procedure is and how sensitive the patient is to pain, different techniques are available. Whether local anaesthesia, sedation or full general anaesthesia, the aim is stress-free treatment and procedures the patient barely notices.
With a local anaesthetic only a small area is numbed and the sensation of pain switched off.
Sedation means damping down the functions of the central nervous system with tranquillisers. The transition from sedation to general anaesthesia is fluid; under general anaesthesia the patient cannot be roused for as long as it lasts. anaesthesia

Non-invasive, in dentistry "non-invasive" and "minimally invasive" describe procedures in which instruments or catheters either do not enter the body at all (non-invasive) or do so only to a small degree (minimally invasive). The terms are mostly used to stress how little discomfort and risk certain techniques involve. minimally invasive