The importance of the Trendelenburg position in dental care.

The Trendelenburg position is a long-standing and well-established method that has been used across various fields of medicine, such as surgery, shock and hypotension treatment, and respiratory treatments. In some disciplines, it’s still considered effective, but has been discontinued in others. Many pieces of the medical furniture that we sell here at Health and Care mention the Trendelenburg Position but if that’s all Portuguese to you, this article will help straighten it all out. 

In medicine, the Trendelenburg position is that in which the patient is placed in the supine position and with the head lower than the feet, in such a way that the return of blood to the heart is favored by the effect of gravity

It owes its name to the surgeon Friedrich Trendelenburg who described it in 1860 and popularized its use. The initial description defined it as an inverted V position with flexed knees in which the highest point of the body is the pelvis. However, afterwards the idea has been simplified and currently the Trendelenburg position is considered to the supine position when the body rests on an inclined plane with the head lower than the legs.

Friedrich Trendelenburg (24 May 1844 – 15 December 1924) was a German surgeon. He was son of the philosopher Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, father of the pharmacologist Paul Trendelenburg and grandfather of the pharmacologist Ullrich Georg Trendelenburg.

Trendelenburg was born in Berlin and studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh. He completed his studies at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin under Bernhard von Langenbeck, receiving his doctorate in 1866. He practiced medicine at the University of Rostock and the University of Bonn. In 1895 he became surgeon-in-chief at the University of Leipzig.

Trendelenburg was interested in the history of surgery. He founded the German Surgical Society in 1872. He died in 1924 of cancer of the mandible, aged 80.

It is imperative to have the correct equipment when using the Trendelenburg position in dental examinations and surgery. Your patient must be safe as well as comfortable, and the surgeon must have his or her hands free. Nowadays, the Trendelenburg position is quite standard in dental units but however, the patient needs to be comfortable without loosing ergonomic features for the dentist who is treating the patient. Ancar dental units have that perfect harmony between comfort for the patient and ergonomic high standards for the dentist and dental professionals.

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