Dental Implants

Dental Implants

Dental Implants are one of the solutions for missing teeth. Putting the crowns, bridges, or dentures can be supported with the help of dental implants easily. The screw is fixed in the jawbone with the surgical fixture in an easier way. For making it function properly, the screw is generally placed on it.

What are dental Implant?

There is nothing that is as good as your natural tooth. However, people can lose their teeth due to many reasons – decay, trauma, gum disease, bone disease, etc. In order to eat, chew and talk, we need our teeth. So, to restore a person’s missing tooth, dentistry provides a few options – dentures, crown and bridge and implants!

Implants are the latest advances in the field of prosthetics and are the closest replacement to a missing tooth. An implant is a screw-like surgical fixture that is placed into the jawbone to replace a missing tooth. A crown is placed on this screw to look and function as the crown portion of the natural tooth.

How does a dental implant/tooth implant work?

Though replacement of teeth has been in dental practice for many decades, today, dental implants are considered the standard of care for prosthetic replacement of missing teeth. Once an implant screw is placed inside the jaw bone, it is allowed fuse with it and this process takes a few months. This process of blending between the dental implant and jawbone is called “osseointegration.” Implants are made up of titanium, an element that is biocompatible and routinely used in surgeries to replace bones.

The dental implant actually replaces the root of a missing tooth. On top of this screw-like structure, an implant crown or a bridge is placed. Having a dental implant fused to the jawbone is the closest thing to resemble a natural tooth because it stands on its own without affecting the nearby teeth and has great stability. As compared to a bridge to replace missing tooth/teeth, an implant doesn’t disturb adjacent teeth and has superior aesthetics too.

With advances in dentistry in the recent past, there have been many advances even in the field of implants, which have significantly improved the success rate of implants clinically.

What are the steps of dental implant/tooth implant treatment?

In order to replace a missing tooth with an implant, the treatment can be divided into the following steps:

• Diagnosis and treatment planning
• Placement of implant
• Healing phase
• Prosthetic phase

In the diagnosis and treatment planning stage, the space around the missing tooth is evaluated and the number of implant screws and crowns is determined based on the amount of space that is available. Measurements of the region and x-rays are used in the diagnosis.

The next step is the placement of the implant screw. This is a minor surgical procedure that is performed under local anaesthesia in the dental clinic. Followed by this phase is the healing phase wherein, the implant is allowed to fuse with the underlying jaw bone in order to stabilise and be able to bear the load of biting forces once the crown has been placed. This phase can take anything between 3-4 months based on the patient’s overall health, dental health, oral hygiene and medical history.

Once the osseointegration of the implant screw with the bone has been confirmed using x-rays, the next step is performed–preparing the implant to receive a crown.