Chapter1
Dental prosthetics
Before we begin our treatment of materials used in dental prosthetics (dental prosthodontics), it is useful to define this dental specialty.
Definition
Dental prosthetics is the area of dentistry that deals with restoring soft and hard tissues (teeth or their parts, or alveolar processes) in the oral cavity in order to regain their functionality as much as possible.
It aims at these aspects of rehabilitation that follow from the needs of patients: functional, aesthetic, phonetic, mental, social, preventive. The rehabilition is achieved through various prostheses that are placed in the patient's mouth.
The dental technician's task is to cooperate with the dentist/prosthodontist to create (and sometimes repair) fixed and removable prostheses that include crowns, inlays, onlays, overlays, bridges, partial and/or complete dentures. To be able to fabricate them sucessfully, the technician needs a deep knowledge of dental materials used in dental prosthetics. He or she needs to understand their physical, mechanical and biological properties. This digital source provides basic information on the topic.
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Fig. 1. Various prostheses