Everything You Need to Know About Cosmetic Dentistry
It is a specialized part of dentistry involving any dental work done in the visible area of teeth when the patient smiles. Most commonly cosmetic dental work is done at the upper and lower front teeth segment. The age group in which cosmetic dentistry is highly catered to is for the middle age population but that does not mean that the cosmetic dental work cannot be done in younger children and older / geriatric adults. Cosmetic dentistry as a specialty involves, multi disciplinary management of various specialties like orthodontics, endodontics, implantology, oral surgery and prosthodontics.
Now in the recent past, cosmetic dentistry has taken upbeat in pediatric dentistry for children less than 5-year-old.
“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder“
What is beautiful to one person may not be beautiful to other and cosmetic dentistry does not hamper the day to day life of individual and is not life threatening. The only thing it does is it reduces the self confidence level thereby indirectly affecting the overall performance of the individual. If smile confidence is improved the whole personality of the individual is improved.
In the millennial generation cosmetic dentistry has taken a significant impact by individuals to improve the facial appearance and smile confidence.
The focus of cosmetic dentistry could be to setting right the teeth alone or the jaws or sometimes the bone. In rare instances it could be setting right teeth to temporomandibular joint also.
Alignment of teeth would be through braces, clear aligners, lingual orthodontics etc.
Alignment of jaw would be through braces combined with orthognathic surgery
In older individuals where immediate solution is required, braces / clear aligners will not be viable. In these instances, we plan for dental veneers, cosmetic zirconia crowns, intentional rct etc. To improve the color of the tooth we perform in-office teeth whitening / home bleaching.
Common ingredients used in home bleaching are carbamide peroxide and hydrogen peroxide. All these treatment plan has to be done with minimal deterioration provided proper meticulous plan.
For good cosmetic dentistry to be carried out, the investigative records required are proper clinical examination, patient’s perception of dental problems, dentist’s assessment of the problem, proper consensus between the patient and dentist, OPG, lateral cephalogram, intra and extra oral photographs, study model.
In older individuals, proper outcome in teeth implantology, implants also planned in cosmetic dentistry
The individual’s perception to problem is purely cosmetic in nature 90% of the time when they come to the dentist but the dentist will assess the problem in a cosmetic perspective as well as functional perspective. Then we look at how to enhance the smile cosmeticticaly with a very good visualized treatment objective (VTO). Nowadays, in the advancement in technology a 3-dimensional digital smile design can be predicted and to show the patient before initiating the treatment planned. A good tie-up with a very good dental technician to as a visual perceptive of the issue without seeing patient is highly mandatory for a successful outcome in cosmetic design management.
This applies to crowns, implant crown, veneers, composite veneers, shade sedation, bite management, etc., to name a few factors.
To summarize, functional assessment of a tooth is mandatory in cosmetic dentistry.
Cosmetic dentistry is applicable definitely to all ages right from children who start having teeth to old age who lost all teeth. So, whether teeth are present or not cosmetic dentistry plays a vital role in providing individuals who do not have teeth and enhancing smiles for those who have teeth.
It is mandatory to have confident smile for all: from young children to middle age children, middle age adults to older adults.
Since cosmetic dentistry involves lot of meticulous planning and foolproof execution of the plan, the time involved and the materials involved and the work involved are phenomenally high compared to routine dental work.
Form a patient‘s perspective, the expectation involved is also high, to meet those expectation without any complication in a hassle free manner, the cost involved escalates 3-4 times higher than routinely practiced dentistry.
Since this work is highly ultra-fine, it highly depends on the clinicians’ hand and mind expertise for a successful outcome in cosmetic dentistry.
We at Rayen’s Dental Care, follow all the factors discussed above to provide best possible solution to our clients who step in with a cosmetic dental problem.