Abstract
Concern about foul breath has recently been increasing in society and specialist consultations are now provided for out-patients at many university hospitals. Still however few medical institutions also provide a psychological approach to the problem. This study introduces the case of a patient who failed to respond to teratment in successive clinics of dentistry, internal medicine, otolaryngology, psychiatry, etc., but for when improvement was observed under treatment involing “ accept-ance” and “support” on the basis of general mental healing.
The patient was a 28 year old female teacher at a school for the handicapped. Her chief complaint was foul breath. No disease that causes foul breath in the mouth was found and the level of hygiene was good. No foul breath was noted.
Treatment was provided using the discomfort index and objective observation within the mouth. The method made it possible to establish a good physician-patient relationship and improvement was observed after relatively few visits.
