Dental Technology

What is Dental Technology?

This is the branch of dentistry, whose practitioners, construct custom made restorative and dental appliances from the prescription received from a dental clinician. These practitioners are called as Dental Technologist or Dental Laboratory Technician.

The different branches of Dental Technology are:

• Fixed Prosthesis: this includes dental crowns, bridges & implants
• Removable Prosthesis: this includes dentures & removable partial dentures
• Maxillofacial Prosthesis: this includes ocular prosthesis & craniofacial prosthesis.
• Orthodontics And Auxiliaries: this includes orthodontic appliances and mouthguards.

Dental Technology Appliances

The different appliances that are available in dental technology are:

Fixed Restorations

This is a sort of appliance that is designed to replace a single tooth or teeth, damaged or lost by injury, caries or other oral diseases. The patient cannot remove these restorations once the dentist fixes them. They include: crowns, bridges, and veneers, fixed implant restorations, inlays and onlays.

Removable Restorations

These are dental appliances that are used to replace one or more teeth, damaged or lost. The patient can remove them but they are stable for cleaning or before sleeping but they are stable in the normal functioning. They can be retained by the patient’s soft tissue as in full dentures, or supported by other teeth like partial dentures and overdentures or on implant attachments.

Maxillofacial Technology

Some of the work done here are:

• Facial and Body prostheses,
• Eye prostheses
• Breast and nipple prostheses,
• Custom made body implants,
• Titanium skull implants,
• Eyelid weights,
• Other Non Prosthetic clinical procedures include:
  
  • Micro-pigmentation (medical tattooing)
  • Skin camouflage.
  • Custom made splinting devices; Burns splints, Keloid scar splints,
  • Surgical planning for Jaw surgery (Osteotomy)
  • Facial or Craniofacial surgical planning
  • Cleft lip and palate Medical Modeling
  • Surgical Simulation modeling,
  • Surgical appliances for trauma
  • Custom made medical device manufacture,
  • TMJ appliances,
  • Tracheal oesophageal valve modifications,
  • Sleep apnoea devices,
  • Oral obturators (specialist dentures)
  • Nasal septum obturators,
  • Intra-oral prosthetics.

Orthodontics

This includes removable orthodontic appliances with wires, springs and screws that are provided on prescription from an orthodontist. These are used to move the teeth to form a better occlusion and better aesthetic appearance for the teeth and in some cases to maintain the position of teeth that were moved earlier.

Authored By Dr Sanjay N - Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopaedics, Bangalore