Dental crowns are an important treatment to help patients who have a damaged tooth, or who have required a root canal to remove an oral infection.
The process of creating the crown, which sits over the top of the damaged tooth to protect it, requires taking an impression of the patient’s teeth so that a crown can be made specifically for that individual.
For many years, dental impressions were taken using soft putty. The process is simple and painless – the dentist puts the putting into a tray and the patient bites down into it. This putty then hardens, creating an impression of the patient’s teeth that can be used to create the crown.
While this works and is usually accurate, patients with a strong gag reflex can find the procedure uncomfortable.
However, nowadays there are digital scanners that can create equally – if not more so – accurate dental impressions without the need for the putty.
Scanners, such as the Ownsmile 5S intraoral scanner, can scan a patient’s teeth very quickly and create a 3D model that a technician can use to create a crown.
What’s more, as the clinician you can see a real-time 3D visualisation of your patient’s teeth, allowing you to check it for accuracy before they even leave the chair.
Taking a digital impression using such a scanner is simple and it takes less than one minute to carry out a full arch scan. This can improve your efficiency in such appointments, as well as the accuracy of the digital impressions you take.
When you use a digital scanner, rather than a traditional method like putty, you will create a 3D model with an unrivaled level of detail. Meanwhile, the associated software will check the scan you’ve taken to ensure it is complete.
This means when you say goodbye to your patient, you can be confident that you have all that you need to create a comfortable, accurate crown for their tooth.