Digital Dentures at IMPrESS in Burnaby 

A denture or a complete denture as it is often called, is an appliance that is inserted in the mouth, replaces natural teeth, and provides support for the cheeks and lips.

Most dentures are made of acrylic and can be fabricated in two different ways.

• A conventional denture is made after all teeth have been extracted and the tissues (gums) have healed.
• An immediate denture is fabricated and inserted immediately after the teeth are extracted and the tissues are allowed to heal under the denture.
• An upper denture has acrylic, usually flesh-colored, that covers the palate (roof of the mouth).
• A lower denture is shaped like a horseshoe to leave room for the tongue.

The teeth are made of plastic, porcelain, or a combination of both. Dentures can be fabricated to fit over endodontically treated teeth and a complete denture can be attached to dental implants to allow for a more secure fit of the appliance.

WHAT ARE DIGITAL DENTURES in Vancouver BC?

Digital dentures are dental prostheses created with the help of scanners, design software and mills or printers. These digital tools can provide for more accuracy, efficiency and often more comfort for the patient.

The digital denture workflow can start in different ways: sometimes a conventional impression is still needed, sometimes a direct scan in the patient’s mouth can be done to create a digital impression for dentures, and sometimes an impression isn’t needed because the clinician does a duplicate of an existing denture. The way the workflow looks depends entirely on the clinical situation and the type of denture that is created.

Intraoral scanning technology can replace the part of the workflow where patients were asked to sit with an uncomfortable impression tray in their mouth for long periods. In addition, digital technology can take out some manual steps that used to be time-consuming: time needed for resets due to inaccuracies in for example occlusion, vertical dimension, and/or aesthetics. If, for example, the patient’s midlines are skewed, the clinician would have to remove all teeth (as many as 28), re-wax, re-set each tooth individually, redo the wax confinement, and then invest, process trim and polish.

With the advent of digital dental scanning technology, it became possible to do digital imaging for dentures in a few minutes with maximum comfort for the patient. In the design phase of the workflow, corrections that could previously take hours, are now done in ten to fifteen minutes. In addition, in the case of a digital removable prosthesis, the uniformity of the design is very beneficial. With the right software, the dental specialist can provide the clinic with cost-effective 3D-printed dentures within a day, which reduces the duration of the treatment, number of visits needed, and time spent working with the patient. Challenging cases can even be tested with designs that are then digitally archived and can easily be referenced or duplicated. A 3D-printed treatment is therefore a very cost-efficient solution.

ARE DIGITAL DENTURES BETTER THAN CONVENTIONAL?

The difference between digital and conventional dentures is not only in the use of hardware and software to digitize parts of the workflow. Much of it also lies in a craft with a long tradition and that comes with its own heritage. Some craftspeople will prefer conventionally tested and tried methods, whereas other clinicians see benefit in digital accuracy and speed, and how this also benefits their patient.

What we can conclude based on clinical research though, is that the majority out of 522 studies reported that digital complete dentures showed similar or better adaptation than conventional dentures . Other clinical studies also showed that digital workflows for dentures reduced chair time and number of visits for a patient, and ensured ‘more favorable clinical and patient-centered outcomes’ .

When it comes to the patient’s perspective on digital versus conventional ways of treatment planning in dentistry, they might not have a clear preference yet. Patients do not always know about the existence of digital technologies available, and how it can influence their denture treatment process. But when they do know, they might ask their dentist for digital dentures because it can bring them the following benefits:

• More comfort and better fit— digital dentures benefit from digital scanning accuracy, which enables technicians to create dentures with better fit and retention.
• Faster fabrication speed and fewer dental visits— creating digital prostheses can be done faster than traditional ones. This also results in savings on the number of visits and adjustments needed.
• Digital prostheses are up to 8 times stronger than conventional  — especially when they are milled and made from robust milling materials such as MMA or PMMA.
• Esthetics— when the denture design software works with official teeth libraries, the patient gets infinite options to create their perfect smile. The denture can be made truly lifelike with natural morphology, color, structure and reflection.
• When lost or damaged, digital complete dentures can easily be duplicated. A dentist will simply ask the lab to find them in the electronic database and get them reproduced.

 

Dentures over a normal course of time will wear and need to be replaced or relined to keep the jaw alignment normal. The alignment will slowly change as the bone and gum ridges recede or shrink due to the extraction of the teeth. Regular dental examinations are still important for the denture wearer so that the oral tissues can be checked for disease or change.

Implant Supported Overdenture in Burnaby & Vancouver BC

An Implant Supported Overdenture is a contemporary restoration that has revolutionized the way surgeons and dentists think of replacing a full set of teeth. Standard dentures are unsecured prostheses with inherent limitations. Most often, dentures are painful, inconvenient, and unstable. Such dentures can make chewing foods difficult, limiting the foods that you once enjoyed. Modern dentistry can help with implant-supported dentures. The Implant Supported Overdenture treatment concept replaces your missing teeth with a full dental bridge supported by dental implants. Fewer implants are needed and overall treatment time and cost are reduced. Please visit here for more information.