Darin O'Bryan, D.D.S. I had a patient come in the a few weeks ago for an implant consult. She was referred by her mother who I had already done an implant on. The patient is getting ready to start her senior year and was missing #7.
Since she is only a senior and 17 I was a little worried about dropping in an implant to early. So we are monitoring her growth. In the mean time she needed something to use instead of her ortho retainer with a fake tooth in it.
One of the great things about the new 4.2 software platform is being able to fabricate bridges chair side. In this case a Maryland bridge will give the patient a great esthetic result and allow for minimal to no preparation of the adjacent tooth. Another function that the new software has is virtual articulation. This helps in a situation like this since we cannot check interferences of excursive movements prior to cementation. This not only causes post insertion adjustments but can also causes problems with esthetic modification that are on the lingual area or the incisal area. The virtual articulator helps overcome these challenges.
During the design process we can turn on the virtual articulater and watch the movement of the patients during function and note any possible interferences.
There is also the option to turn on the occlusal compass to map out any interferences that could lead to adjustments or possible debonding of the restoration.
Once we know where the problems areas will be we can adjust them during our design phase instead of post milling or even worse post cementation. The result allows the esthetics of the final restoration to be maintained.
