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Dentistry
is the term used to indicate the branch of medicine that deals with diagnosis,
care and prevention of all the diseases affecting our masticatory system, which
is directly connected to the beauty of our face and health of the whole organism.
Our teeth are a functional and aesthetic property, necessary to guarantee a
pleasant look and a better health. Their shape, colour, arrangement within our
mouth, the way they are surrounded by our gums etc, affect the beauty of both
our face and smile.
As far as the functional aspect is concerned, we need to refer to the occlusion,
to how the two arcades relate to each other, which determines a correct
functionality of both our temporomandibular articulations and masticatory
musculature.
To sum up, the way our teeth come in
contact with each other, affects other parts of our masticatory system, and
contributes to determine its good health.
But dentistry is not only our masticatory system, it has been proved that relations
exist between a wrong occlusion and alterations of our body posture, between
inflammatory diseases of our periodontium and premature births or underweight
babies, and also between periodontium patologies and heart failures.
Seen that dentistry does not only concern our teeth but our entire organism,
emphasis should be laid on prevention. Our aim today is that of preventing, or
at least intercepting diseases as soon as possible, in order to limit the
damages, with a bit of regret, only as a final stage. Prevention on teeth and
gums diseases is based on the adoption of precepts of good behaviour. A nice
smile, shining and white teeth, nicely aligned, healthy gums etc do not happen
randomly. An accurate and daily oral hygiene, together with periodic check ups
and necessary treatments are fundamental.
Modern dentistry is nowadays able to maintain our oral health to a level unimaginable
until a few years ago. By strictly putting every prevention rule into practice,
we are now able to keep our teeth and the surrounding tissues healthy and well
aligned up to our advanced age.
Please do not forget that bacterial plaque has just recently been identified as a
relevant factor in the destructive process of the hard tissues of our teeth crowns
(dental holes), and of those of support (periodontium patologies), with
consequent preventive and curative measures carried out in developed countries.
Before that, a serious dental disease called pyorrhoea or “expulsive
gingivitis” was affecting a large part of the population.
The disease is today called chronic periodontitis to put emphasis on the situation
of tissues inflammation, which brings to their destruction, loosening and fall.
If taken in time, it regresses and can be totally cured. Teeth expulsion can be
avoided even if the cures start in the most advanced stages of the disease. If
not taken care of though, this is a chronic and progressive disease, which can
quickly bring to teeth lost, even in a short time after the first signs of
sickness.
A huge part of dentistry is nowadays
concentrating on the aesthetic function of those organs responsible for our smile. An
important aspect, underestimated in the past, affecting a mental activity,
self-perception, which plays a huge role within interpersonal relationships.
When feeling beautiful, a person interacts with a better approach with
relatives, friends and colleagues.
Time usually acts negatively even on those who have been offered a nice and white
smile by mother nature. Regardless of all the attentions given, passing time
can spoil, cut unevenly or darken teeth.
If that happens, it does not longer represent an issue; progresses made by
aesthetic dentistry have made a decolouration of enamel and dentin possible, a
process called teeth whitening, or bleaching, or power bleaching. And if the
incisive margins are not longer perfect as they used to be, the help of
special resins can nowadays give them their original shape back.
More and more people rely nowadays on the orthodontist to improve their own smile
and masticatory system. Their requests concern mainly purely aesthetic
objectives: treatement of superimposed teeth, closure of unwanted spaces
between teeth (diastema), reduction of buckteeth (protrusion).
Until a short time ago, people would not
undergo an orthodontic treatment because fearing a not negligible detail: the
anaesthetic orthodontic braces .
Today, as happened in other branches of medicine, orthodontic treatments have been influenced by a
higher consideration of the aestethic and psychologic needs shown by the
patients.
Thanks to the quick progresses made by technology, modern dentists can make themself
responsible for the psychological anxiety of those who have to undergo an
orthodontic treatment, favouring the use of aestethic braces . Tongue retainers
and the invisible ones have become normal routine. And in the rare cases in
which the dentist can’t do anything but turn to the traditional retainer, the
anaesthetic iron braces visible on the front of the teeth can be replaced with
ceramic, better looking ones.
Modern dentistry is able to satisfy the most sofisticated requests in terms of
aestethic and functionality of the system whence depend chewing and
smile. Today, more than in the past, we can really say that “our
health is in our mouth”; there it can stay for a long time or, however, be
extremely well restored. |
