If you’ve got a cracked or broken tooth, chances are your dentist will recommend you get a crown to cover it up and restore the appearance, strength, and shape of the tooth. In the past, this has meant that the dentist would make a model of the tooth, send the impression to the dental lab for creation of a crown, and then having a temporary crown put into place until the actual crown is made. Usually this took a week or more, meaning that patients would have to return to the dentist office for a second visit when the temporary would be removed and the final crown be cemented into place.

This is where digital dental technology comes in offering dentists a quicker option for creating crowns. It works like this: A digital scan is taken of the mouth with an intra-oral camera and a three-dimensional image of the teeth and gums then shows on a computer screen. Software gives the dimensions of the crown needed based on the shape, size, and position of the tooth in need of the crown. A milling machine carves out the crown from a ceramic block, and within two hours, it is ready to be bonded to the tooth.

These same-day crowns are just one type of advancement in digital dentistry. Others include digital x-rays, digital dentures, and cone-beam computed CT imagining. Dental offices all over the world are improving the experience of their patients by adopting these and other advancements.

 

For instance, now lasers can be used in many procedures, from finding cavities and putting in fillings to dental implants. Because the need for drills and sutures is lessened or eliminated altogether, there is less pain and trauma for patients.  Prior to cone-beam CT imaging, dentists were not able to place implants with such precision.

Digital technology has been available for dentists for about 25 years, primarily for making ceramic crowns and other dental restorations such as inlays. Even so, because of the expense of the equipment and supplies–often as high as $150,000 to $200,000–a small percentage of dental offices are implementing it. Those who have gone through the expense to implement it, however, emphasize how much more efficient and accurate it has made them. Some dentists even say they can make twice the number of crowns in the same amount of time.

Although Uveneer doesn’t involve three-dimensional technology, its creation too was based on making dentists more efficient and accurate while producing cost-effective composite veneers. The process eliminates many of the shortcomings of prefabricated systems, such as thickness, sizing and shade restrictions, and cost and stock holding. It offers dentists a unique opportunity to improve practice income.

As technology continues to improve the efficiency and accuracy of dentists, it’s likely that more practices will start to adopt these new methods.

Uveneer is the invention of cosmetic dentist, Dr. Sigal Jacobson. Though only being launched since February of 2014, Dr. Jacobson’s patented design is already being touted as “groundbreaking” and “essential” by dentists worldwide. A native of Australia, Dr. Jacobson also runs her own practice Jacobson Dental Group of Melbourne. To learn more about what Uveneer can do for you and your patients, visit our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages!