One of the preventive restorative treatment concepts that had emerged in the
dental literature in the mid nineties was the Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART)
approach. ART is one of the existing minimal intervention approaches that removes
demineralised tooth tissues using hand instruments and restores the cleaned cavity
and adjacent pits and fissures with an adhesive filling material, usually a glass
ionomer cement. No electricity is required and local anaesthesia is rarely asked for
by people treated by the ART approach (Frencken et al, 1996).