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Planning and Preparing for Dental Procedures: Your Questions Answered


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Planning and Preparing for Dental Procedures: Your Questions Answered

Making decisions about your smile can be confusing. Should you have a tooth pulled or get a root canal? Should you get adult braces or stick with a retainer? Should you use at-home whitening remedies or have your teeth professionally whitened? If questions like these are keeping you up at night, you've come to the right place. I used to stress out over routine dental procedures, and as a result, I did loads of research on everything dental-related. To help others, I'm using this blog as a place to collect, review and share what I've learned through the years. I hope you can use the information here to help you plan and prepare for your next dental appointment.

Why Dental Restoration with Chairside CAD Technology Is Beneficial

Dentists provide a wide range of dental services to cater to the different needs of their patients, and with technological advances in the dental world, they are finding newer, better methods of dealing with dental problems. One particular type of technology that has led to significant breakthroughs in the dental world is Computer-Aided Design (CAD) technology. With older technology, dentists created artificial restorations for teeth and other parts of the mouth by making a mould of the patient's teeth, gums and mouth. CAD technology has changed the way dentists take dental impressions for the better.

Continue reading on below to find out some of the awesome benefits that dental restorations with CAD technology brings. 

Better-fitting tooth restorations

The quality of a dental veneer, crown, inlay, onlay or other tooth restoration fabricated in an off-site lab is under the control of technicians that use moulds of the patient's teeth to make final products, without even seeing the patient themselves. In short, the quality of tooth restorations made depends on how well the dental impressions were taken. 

Using CAD technology to create restore teeth gives dentists full control over the final result. There is completely no need to send moulds of patients' teeth to someone else, as the entire restoration process is carried out in-house at the dental office or clinic. 

Accuracy of impressions achieved via CAD technology ensures the final products fit better than those made by traditional sculpting, but also look more natural.

Faster treatments

Most patients don't relish spending time in the dentist's chair, hence it's vital for dentists to provide quick tooth restoration treatment. Taking photographed images of the patient's teeth and mouth in 3D using CAD technology eliminates the need for time-consuming, mould-based impressions of teeth. 

As long as the technology is available in the dentist's clinic, patients can have their digital dental impressions taken and tooth restorations made and fitted in just one day. This eliminates the need for a temporary restoration or repeat visits to the dental clinic. This helps to improve the overall patient satisfaction.

CAD dental systems don't come by cheaply. Hence, dentists who have chairside dental CAD equipment may charge more for their services than dentists who rely on CAD systems located in a dental lab. The higher procedure costs may be used to recoup the initial investment and also ensure the equipment is properly maintained. So, expect to pay more than you would if you chose traditionally machined restorations.