Dental Implants are rapidly emerging as an alternative to traditional treatment modalities of tooth replacement such as bridge or removable partial dentures. Although placing implants involves a minor surgical procedure it still remains a long term & less invasive alternative to the conventional treatments.
WHY
After you lose a tooth to caries or gum disease or sometimes even trauma, you want to replace the tooth for function & esthetics. Traditionally bridge or removable partial dentures were used to do so.
In a Fixed bridge the teeth adjacent to the missing tooth have to be reduced in size so as to place caps on it. This leads to - sensitivity in adjacent teeth, caries in the adjacent teeth due to food accumulation under the caps & loss of bone at the site of tooth extraction. Loss of enamel from these adjacent teeth also makes them susceptible to caries, which usually go unnoticed due to the caps.
A removable partial denture takes support from adjacent teeth & gums to enable the patients to chew the food. The biggest disadvantage of these dentures is that they are not fixed and move when the patient eats food.
Implants on the other hand provide a solution to tooth loss by replacing that tooth / teeth itself without harming the adjecent teeth &/or the gums. They are permanent, caries free & preserve the bone as well as the gums.
WHEN
Dental Implants can be placed immediately after tooth extraction or after 3 to 4 months of tooth extraction after the bone healing is complete.
Immediate implant placement offers the patient a chance to have his / her caps placed over the implants after 3 to 4 months (back teeth) or even within a month (upper & lower front teeth)
Delayed implant placement is advised if the extraction socket has infection which cannot be removed or inadequate bone availability where in there may be a need to place a bone graft.
Usually crowns are placed over the implants after the osseo-integrate (fuse) with the bone. This process usually takes 3 to 4 months.
Where
Implants can be placed for almost all the teeth except the third molars (wisdom teeth).
Implants can replace a single tooth, multiple teeth or the whole arch (upper or lower teeth)
Single teeth implants have a single cap which may be made of metal, metal fused to ceramic, full ceramic or even zirconia.
Full mouth implants can be restored using an implant supported bridge or denture. Full mouth rehabilitation can be achieved with a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 12 implants in each jaw (although 12 implants is uneconomical & time consuming)