Dentures don’t always fit very well for people who have severe atrophy of the jaw, but today’s small dental implants can make a real difference for patient who need to wear dentures and don’t have adequate jawbone to support them.
For people with atrophy, there can be problems with the ability to speak clearly while wearing dentures, retention of the dentures in the mouth and being able to eat well without experiencing clicking, popping, rocking and other problems.
But a recent denture study has show than insertion of just two to four dental implants to support dentures can lead to a success rate that’s as much as 96 percent. It doesn’t get much better than that.
In fact, several researchers have looked at patient satisfaction related to dentures and have found that patients who have implants to support their dentures experience more satisfaction than those who don’t have them and opt for traditional mandibular dentures.
Sill, the implants aren’t for everyone. Some people with a partially resorbed alveolar ridge can’t benefit from the implants or have to have more or longer implants. In some cases, a dentist may choose not to explore the implant option when there’s too little jawbone left.
Also, risk factors can make it unadvisable for a patient to have implant surgery. This could include age, overall health and other factors. But today’s small implants are safer than older procedures and don’t require bone augmentation or a flap. This means there’s little blood loss and that the cost of treatment is low too.
Questionnaires given to patients have show positive responses to implants, and patients have reported being able to wear dentures for a longer period of time and with less pain when they use implants than when they do not.
Simply put, patients like implant-supported dentures, and it’s no problem seeing why that is.
To read more about the pitfalls of dentures, visit http://biocompatibledentist.org/holistic_dentistry/trouble-lower-dentures/
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