written by: Dr Vineetha Devi
Introduction
Dentistry has evolved over the past 100 years from traditional to modern techniques and tools, and it continues to advance every single day. From painful dental procedures to the extraction of impacted teeth without feeling any touch, dentistry has achieved remarkable milestones.
Evolution of Oral Hygiene
From brushing with bamboo to the invention of toothbrushes and toothpaste specifically manufactured for dental problems like caries, gingivitis, and staining, dentistry has grown rapidly. These revolutionary inventions have helped combat many oral diseases at early stages and have been a good choice for patients to maintain their oral hygiene and dentition with ease.
Digital Records & Medico-Legal Importance
Dental records have been crucial for medico legal purposes, but filling pages with detailed information and maintaining physical files was a major struggle. Dentists often overlook record-keeping and could get into serious trouble. Not having patients’ records is considered a crime, and dentists can be sued for failing to justify their treatment for a patient but now e-records have solved this problem, and patient records are kept safe with password-protected files even for a lifetime. Just enter a patient ID, and you get all previous records in seconds.
Advances in Pain Management & Anesthesia
Dentists working on painless anesthetic injections have been a groundbreaking achievement, as intraoral injection is very painful and often leads patients to avoid dental treatment procedures, which costs them in the long run. Dentistry always focuses on the comfort of the patient, and one goal is to eliminate all pain during procedures so patients can have painless dentistry. Improvements have been done by adopting techniques like applying pressure, warming anesthetic solution, and slower injecting of L.A.
Newer needle-free numbing tools are also available, like lidocaine sprays suitable for children, and many also prefer them for sensitive adults before injection.
Sedation Dentistry
Children often fear and does not allow even a simple touch. Modern dentistry has even included sedation techniques; children, uncooperative, or impaired patients are often treated under sedation. Dentistry is transforming into a modern field and is becoming accessible to all.
Digital Impressions & CAD/CAM
Patients struggle with impression materials, having a gag reflex, and panic, making simple two-minute procedures into difficult nightmares to have a perfect impression for the dentist. However, new innovations like intraoral scanners have resolved this, as a perfect precise impression of the whole mouth of the patient is taken within seconds with ease. Recent introduction of CAD/CAM technology has also reduced time and effort for making a prosthesis, as patient impression and seating of a prosthesis can be done in a single visit, reducing both time and lab and material costs. Now patients does not need to have multiple visit and wait for weeks for their prosthesis, they can have their missing teeth replaced with a beautiful smile just in a few hours, which is admired by most of the patients as they want their smile and aesthetic to be improved as soon as possible.
Tooth Preservation & Regenerative Dentistry
Not only in tools and techniques, dentistry has also worked to save a tooth at any cost, as modern dentistry emphasizes minimal invasive procedures having hundreds of different option to save a carious tooth and maintaining it in the patient’s dentition as long as possible. In traditional dentistry, pain is equal to extraction, but now different procedures like filling, RCT, I/D, and many more approaches are taken to end pain and maintaining the function and aesthetic of the tooth, regenerative dentistry has also been successful in maintaining the vitality of the tooth. Artificial prosthesis from RPD to Fixed prosthesis have changed the game. Materials like zirconia, e-max have been so good in mimicking natural teeth, but nothing can replace natural teeth as they help to maintain alveolar bone width and height.
Implant Dentistry
Implants have been the best option for replacing missing teeth as they help to maintain alveolar bone and also maintain function as an aesthetic, but being so expensive natural tooth is still best to save and maintain teeth cost less than replacing.
Cosmetic Dentistry & Smile Enhancement
Often, people want to smile beautifully and transforming their smile with traditional methods such as orthodontic treatment requires much time and is often painful. People often avoid this and want fast and painless procedures to get a beautiful smile. Newer procedures like veneers have made this possible. People can get direct composite fill-ups with minimal tooth destruction or can get indirect veneers to get a beautiful and pleasing smile.
Teeth Whitening
White teeth have been a dream for patients in the past. Having a whiter and brighter smile is aesthetically pleasing, and people always prefer to have white teeth. With whitening procedures, patients can have a white and bright smile, with minimally invasive procedures like micro-abrasion or laser whitening can also be done. However, whitening treatments can also be done even at the comfort of their home by dentist dentist-prescribed tray system, which is also budget-friendly.
Digital Smile Design
Patients often fear having dental procedures, assuming what the outcome would be. Recently developed software, such as aligners, often provide outcomes of patient procedures, and patient can have their results designed right before treatment and can even suggest changes to customise their smile. Sounds mind-blowing, like patient can now custom their smile on their own.
Precision Tools: Loupes & Microscopes
For precision, dental loupes have been invented to never miss a single spot in a tooth to newer modern clinics adopting dental microscopes which feel like sitting and working inside a tooth.
Tele dentistry
Modern dentistry has even included tele dentistry where patients can benefit from consultation sitting at their place with no need to long drives and waiting rooms.
Dentistry is evolving at a rocket speed with benefiting and contributing in multiple ways one cannot even imagine. Dentistry does not stop here; it is evolving and growing every single day with more improvements, and innovators are too curious about what can be invented next and can be done to reach the higher levels and make dentistry budget friendly and accessible to all.
Written by Dr Vineeta
Dr Vineetha Devi
BDS
Larkana – Pakistan
