The prostheses on dental implants can change the quality of the edentulous patients’ lives.
Prosthodontics is the area of dentistry that focuses on the restoration and maintenance of oral functions, aspect and health of the patient as a method to rehabilitate natural teeth and/or to replace adjacent oral tissues with artificial substituents.
Fixed prosthodontics is the area of prosthodontics that deals with the restoration and/or replacement of the teeth with artificial components that cannot be removed.
Removable prosthodontics is the area of prosthodontics concerned with replacing the teeth and soft tissues for patients totally or partially edentulous with dentures that can be removed for cleaning.
Skeletal prosthodontics with attachments means a denture, fixed or removable, sustained by dental pillars with a specific system composed by 2 subunits (primary anchor and secondary anchor).
Implant supported prosthesis is that area of prosthodontics dealing with restoration obtained by prosthesis on implants.
Severe tooth affections lead, in most cases, to their total or partial loss. The restoration of nonfunctional teeth and the replacement of the lost one are performed with the help of prosthetic treatments. The specialist dentist will determine the prosthetic treatment after a clinical and radiological examination (panoramic X-ray, computed tomography), intraoral and facial photos and, also, after the realization of dental impressions that are later placed on the articulator. In order to determine a treatment as accurate as possible, it is fundamental to obtain all the clinical, radiological and photographic information.
What is edentulism?
Edentulism is characterized by the absence of one tooth or of several teeth on one arch or even of all teeth of one or both arches (complete edentulism) and it is followed by the successive disruption of essential functions of the orofacial complex: mastication, speech, physiognomy and so on.
The consequences of the absence of one or several teeth on an arch:
- The open space remaining after the loss of one or several teeth will decrease because of the neighboring teeth tendency to close the space;
- The antagonist tooth inclines to vertically migrate (growing/rising) towards the edentate space (not accomplishing the functional role because of the absence of the correspondent tooth, the tooth on the opposite arch will migrate);
These changes of position of the remaining teeth will lead to:
- Periodontal problems by way of the appearance of some retentive spaces which are hard to clean, accompanied by gum inflammation, that, uncontrolled, could affect the sustaining structure of the concerned teeth (periodontal disease);
- Muscle tensions and, in time, temporomandibular joint dysfunctions;
- Occlusal problems (mastication disorder with the appearance of abnormal contacts caused by dental migration)
What are dentures/prostheses?
Prostheses or”false teeth” are designed to replace missing teeth. They apply for patients with a few missing teeth and for those who have lost all their teeth (completely edentulous). Dentures also look and behave as natural teeth, proving to be an efficient option. A denture is a set of false teeth that are attached on an acrylic structure that can be reinforced with metal.
Types of denture:
By the way of fixation, dentures are divided in:
- Fixed (unidental – crowns or pluridental – bridges):
- The crowns restore the morphology of a single broken tooth and they are fixed through cementation. Among unidental prostheses we can also include:
- Vestibular ceramic veneers (aesthetic recontouring)
- Palatal ceramic veneers and occlusal ceramic onlays (functional rebalancing)
- Ceramic inlays (incrustations)
- Bridges are prostheses that compensate the lack of one or several teeth, being cemented on the limitrophe teeth of an edentulism.
Fixed prostheses can be made of various materials:
- All-ceramic
- Zirconia supported ceramic
- Metallic supported ceramic
- Noble/half noble metals (unaesthetic)
- Acrylic/ composite (temporary crowns)
- Movable (complete dentures): are extended works made for complete edentulism cases and they are sustained only by the bone structures of the oral cavity.
- Removable (they are recommended for partial edentulism, when dental bridges cannot be done)
- Implant supported prostheses
The role of prostheses is identical with the natural teeth role, namely they have to provide a normal mastication and a pleasant smile. In case of partial tooth loss, it is important that the resistance of the remaining natural teeth not to be through overstrain or leaning, so the prosthesis has to be done as fast and as good as possible. A quality prosthesis equally depends on the dentists, technicians and on the used materials.
Therefore the Dental Progress Clinic proves to be a good choice for the execution of the impeccable crowns and bridges of various materials (noble, half noble, ceramic), of different types of dentures (fixed or removable, classic or with special systems and so on), of prostheses on implants, of ceramic and composite veneers, of occlusal balancing treatment.