Dental Technology: New Materials And Devices

Cosmetic Dentistry Directory

Find a Neuromuscular Dentist entistry, especially cosmetic dentistry, has come up with many new materials and devices for better dental care. As dental ceramics have been developed and improved in recent years, they have had to meet three basic requirements:

Aesthetic appeal
Ease of creating complex shapes
Resistance to corrosion and mechanical wear (from chewing)

Research and experimentation is ongoing so that materials are frequently improved and new materials become available.

Dental Porcelain

Dental porcelain is a glass-like ceramic material used for fillings, crowns and bridges, and veneers. It is made in layers, each layer being compressed before the next is added. It is durable, strong, and stain-resistant, and comes in many shades of white. The best porcelains have subtle variations of shade very like tooth enamel.

Both tooth enamel and dental porcelain are semi-translucent, meaning that they absorb some light and reflect some. This gives them a similar sheen so that porcelain restorations are not easily visible as restorations.

For dental crowns, a lining is required to make the porcelain strong enough on back teeth. PFM crowns (porcelain-fused-to-metal) have a metal lining with the disadvantage that it becomes visible as a black line as gums recede with age. There are also all-porcelain crowns with a white zirconia lining.

White Dental Composite

The composites used by cosmetic dentists for fillings and other repairs are a mix of synthetic resins. When first used in the 1990s, they tended to break, but they have since been improved and strengthened to the point where they can be used on back teeth.

One of their big advantages is esthetic. They can be made in many shades of white to match each patient’s natural tooth color. Also, by being bonded to the tooth and hardened with a curing light, they strengthen the tooth. A disadvantage is that when placed by an inexperienced dentist, they can fail prematurely; however, you can avoid this disadvantage by choosing a well-qualified cosmetic dentist.

Storing Baby Teeth For Their Stem Cells

There has been much controversy over use of embryonic stem cells for research because to obtain them, the embryo must be killed. However, a lot of research has been done using adult stem cells, which are easily obtainable.

What are stem cells? A stem cell is a developmentally early cell that can transform itself into a specific type of cell as needed, such as a nerve cell, heart cell, muscle cell, etc. This is how an embryo grows until it is mature enough to be born. We all have our own stem cells that can be obtained from the spinal cord, bone marrow, or connective tissue. They can be extracted, treated with growth factors and regulating proteins, and made to grow into specific body cells as needed.

When your child loses a baby tooth, you can save it and have its stem cells frozen and stored in a Tooth Cell Bank against the day when your child might need them. Diseases that are currently incurable may be treatable in the future using stem cells. Because they are your own cells, the body does not reject them.

Treatments using adult stem cells have already given good results. For example, the heart muscles can be repaired after a cardiac arrest by implanting the patient’s own stem cells in the heart’s damaged area. They grow as heart cells, restoring the heart to normal function. Stem cells have also been used to repair blood vessels damaged by diabetes and to re-grow broken nerves after a spinal cord injury. However, this type of surgery is in a very early stage and more research is needed.

Better Dental Hygiene

The American Dental Association has estimated that over 70 percent of Americans have some degree of gum disease. Recent research has been making strong connections between gum disease on the one hand and heart attack and stroke on the other hand. It stands to reason that when the bacteria causing gum disease get into the bloodstream, they can travel and cause infection elsewhere in the body. Bleeding gums is one of the early symptoms of gum disease and it creates opportunities for bacteria to enter the blood.

The goal of daily dental hygiene is to minimize bacterial presence in the mouth and prevent bacterial invasion of the mouth tissues. Part of achieving this goal is effectively cleaning the teeth at least once a day and preferably more.

Electric Toothbrushes. Electric toothbrushes have been available for about 50 years, but recently more effective and sophisticated designs have come on the market.

Sonic brushes vibrate at a very fast rate – 30,000 strokes per minute or more, compared to about 300 per minute by hand brushing. This causes movement in the fluids next to the teeth. According to the manufacturing companies, creating a second cleaning action can remove plaque even from places untouched by the bristles.
Oscillating/pulsating brushes move more slowly – about 7,500 strokes per minute – but also pulsate at 20,000 times per minute, or up to 40,000, depending on the brush type. They do not cause fluid movements, but do a very thorough scrubbing job.
The Hydrabrush has six microbrushes which clean the front and back surfaces of both upper and lower teeth all at the same time. They enclose the teeth entirely and also massage the gums as they move. This gives the same cleaning in 30 seconds that a single-head brush gives in three minutes. Brush heads come in regular length bristles and a longer length for people with receding gums; they also come in two levels of softness.

Water Picks. Brushing is one half of the daily dental hygiene and flossing is the other half. Flossing cleans the side surfaces where teeth abut each other and where brushes cannot reach. Dental floss is one solution but a better one is a water pick of some kind. Mouthwash can be placed in the water for extra sanitizing and the water pressure can be set to your comfort or need. The water penetrates all crevices and spaces in the teeth and massages the gums as well.

There are many brands of water pick. Some are portable for individual use; some are designed for family use. Some have a built-in tongue cleaner. They give about 1,200 water jets per minute.

Mouthguards and Dental Orthotics

A typical mouthguard is worn simply for teeth protection, as in professional sports. Improving on that, a neuromuscular dentist named Anil Makkar devised a mouthguard called the Pure Power Mouthguard (PPM™). It must be custom-made for each individual and holds that person’s jaw in the correct position at the same time as it provides teeth protection. He founded the company Makkar Athletics Group, Inc. in 2006 to market this dental device to neuromuscular dentists in Canada and the U.S.

By keeping the jaw correctly positioned, the PPM improves a player’s balance, flexibility, strength, and reflex times, giving him a competitive edge.

Dental Appliances for Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a condition where the patient ceases to breathe many times during the night, wakes to gasp for air, falls asleep again, and then repeats this cycle throughout the night.

The original and accepted treatment for sleep apnea has been CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure). It uses a vacuum pump at the bedside connected via a long tube to a mask worn by the patient. The pump sends regular puffs of air that help to keep the airway open and prevent breathing obstruction. However, about 75 percent of patients on CPAP stop using it because of its discomfort and loud noise.

To address this problem, neuromuscular dentists have been approaching sleep apnea as a bite problem and using customized appliances to treat it. The sleep apnea sufferer wears a custom device during sleep that holds the lower jaw or the tongue slightly forward, keeping the airway clear. There is no pump or mask.

Snoring is one of the symptoms of sleep apnea although not everyone who snores has sleep apnea. A habitual snorer can sleep better and more quietly when wearing a custom device because the snoring sound is caused by the airway’s soft tissue vibrating. When the airway is keep fully open, snoring ceases, breathing improves, and sleep is more restful.

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