dental foot control
Typical dental foot controls include a single lever that controls the speed of anair-powered or electrically-powered handpiece. Single-lever dental foot controls suffer from the disadvantage that they may be actuated from essentially a single position, so that as the dental professional moves around the patient it may be necessary to move the foot control. In addition, dual-lever foot controls are available, but they suffer from essentially the same problem.Various attempts have been made to address this problem by, for example,providing an actuator for the foot control that may essentially be actuated from any position around the foot control. Currently there are available dental foot controls with a disk actuator (a low angle cone, disposed over the base of the foot control) that provides increased accessibility for the dental professional.It has been found that the cord connecting these prior art foot controls (often called"rheostats"in the art) to the dental instrument and its point of connection to the foot control itself pose problems for the dental professional operator.