Oral rehabilitation is a term used in dentistry to describe the process where a patient is taken from a position of dental disease to a position of dental health. Dental phobias often lead people to neglect their dental health over a period of years until they either get toothache or become self-conscious about the appearance of their teeth.
Oral rehabilitation varies from patient to patient but is generally a staged process which takes the patient through the following steps to oral health:
- Relief of pain (if you have pain when you attend)
- Prevention of further disease (dental hygiene advice, diet advice etc)
- Removal of disease – Decayed teeth are filled or extracted and gums are cleaned to make everything healthy and stable.
- Reassessment of mouth once the stages above have been completed. This ensures you are able to keep your mouth clean and healthy.
- Cosmetic assessment – This involves the provision of crowns, veneers, bridges, dentures or implants to restore missing teeth or to improve appearance.
When you attend for your first appointments we often gather some additional information, like x-rays, photos and study models. This, along with your clinical examination, allows us to plan the options available to achieve our overall goal of oral health.