Prosthodontics
This area of our work relates to Prosthodontics, which is the area of dentistry dedicated to making replacements for missing or damaged teeth. Common prosthodontic treatments include dentures, dental implants, crowns and bridges.
Please also visit the ‘Implants’ page on our website.
Crowns
A dental crown is a tooth-shaped “cap” that is placed over a tooth — to cover the tooth to restore its shape and size, strength, and improve its appearance. They can be an ideal restoration to:
- Provide an effective protection for a tooth that is heavily filled
- Protect a weak tooth (for instance, from decay) from breaking or to hold together parts of a cracked tooth
- Restore an already broken tooth or a tooth that has been severely worn down
- Cover and support a tooth with a large filling when there isn’t a lot of tooth left
- Hold a dental bridge in place
- Cover misshaped or severely discoloured teeth
- Cover a dental implant
- Make a cosmetic modification.
Dentures
A denture is a removable replacement for missing teeth, resembling natural gum tissue and teeth, also known as false teeth. With dentures a new smile can be achieved for people with missing teeth, giving them extended self-confidence.
You can have different kind of dentures, fixed dentures or removable dentures that can be a full- or partial denture, depending on your very own needs.
Types of Dentures
- Full or complete dentures are used when all of the teeth are missing.
- Partial dentures are very useful to prevent other teeth from shifting position, as they only fill in the spaces between two missing teeth and by this, stably keeping them apart.
Bridges
There are three main types of bridges:
- Traditional bridges involve creating a crown for the tooth or implant on either side of the missing tooth, with a pontic in between. Traditional bridges are the most common type of bridge and are made of either porcelain fused to metal or ceramics.
- Cantilever bridges are used when there are adjacent teeth on only one side of the missing tooth or teeth. Cantilever bridges are usually used to replace only one tooth.
- Maryland bonded bridges (also called a resin-bonded bridge or a Maryland bridge) are made of plastic teeth and gums supported by a metal framework. Metal wings on each side of the bridge are bonded to your existing teeth.
Dental bridges literally bridge the gap created by one or more missing teeth. A bridge is made up of two crowns one on each tooth on either side of the gap, these two anchoring teeth are called abutment teeth, and a false tooth/teeth in between. These false teeth are called pontics and can be made from gold, alloys, porcelain or a combination of these materials. Dental bridges are supported by either natural teeth or dental implants.