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Ask HN: Why don't dental chairs have a keyboard for easier communication?
In this way, you could more easily communicate with your dentist via the keyboard and a speech synthesizer.
Additionally, you could even have small talk throughout the procedure.
- JohnFen 2y agoThere is zero chance that I'd be able to effectively use a keyboard when the dentist is at work on my mouth.
- amichail 2y agoWhy? Don't you touch-type?
- JohnFen 2y agoIf you mean can I use a keyboard without looking at it, then yes (once I have my hands positioned properly). But I don't think that would help much. The keyboard would have to be positioned in an awkward place, which would throw off my hand position and I expect ruin my keyboarding skills. But, more importantly, I'm far, far too distracted to have the mental cycles left over for keyboarding. For a similar reason, I can't stand listening to music during dental procedures. But others may take to this better. There's nothing wrong with having a keyboard as an option, of course. I seriously doubt it would benefit me any, though. Update: Now that I've thought about it, I'd find a simpler variation useful: two big buttons, one under each hand, one meaning "Yes" and the other meaning "No". My dentists have generally instituted a similar, but non-technical solution: raise one hand for "yes", the other for "no"/"stop"/"I'm in distress".
- pavel_lishin 2y agoI've always used the system of "grunt so they can take their hands out" so I can speak, more or less.
- LinuxBender 2y agoIt would need to be able to handle saliva, blood and other fluids but maybe a low tech approach would be laminated cards. Yes, No, Not Sure, Stop, Suction Please, Am I supposed to be seeing colors?, Code Brown, (1-10 for pain scale), etc... Perhaps put raised dots or cut micro-notches on the cards so you can pick the right one without looking. Add a metal grommet in the corner and put them on a dog tag chain.
- pavel_lishin 2y agoSince this is HN, I must suggest a technological improvement to this system, which is somewhat problematic because that's a lot of cards to try to shuffle through "blind": A monitor above the chair, and a simple joystick on the arm of the chair, which can be easily covered with plastic. Left/right to cycle through those card-equivalents, press down or push forward to select the card. Also, for most procedures, you're likely to only need "yes", "no", and "get your hands out of there so I can say a few words".
- LinuxBender 2y agoAll interesting ideas. a lot of cards to try to shuffle through "blind" That's why I suggested the raised dots or micro-notches. It's used by the vision impaired and magicians but I am not supposed to give away their secret. Pen and Teller use a different trick and I pinky promise I won't give that one away.
- pavel_lishin 2y agoYeah, it's not a bad idea, but a dentist visit is a stressful time for a lot of people - trying to learn a new way of representing information is probably a lot to ask of people getting a root canal. I know that if my dentist told me, "ok, one dot means yes, two dots means no, three dots means pain, four dots means you had a nice weekend..." I'd just tell them I'll suffer through it quietly and raise my hand or grunt if I need to urgently communicate something.
- 2y ago
- Someone 2y agoIgnoring that, IMO, very few people would use it, and that the dentist may have other things to attend to than the patient’s smalltalk, there’s the issue of having to clean it between patients. That would probably mean having a keyboard with a cover that one cannot easily blind-type on, further decreasing the number of people who would use it.
- beardyw 2y agoI don't ever plan to distract my dentist.