Dental Jaw Positioning Guide for Precise Restorative Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for transferring dental apparatus dimensions from an articulator to a patient's mouth during restorative procedures lack precision, often leading to misalignment due to changes in bone, tissue, or teeth removal, requiring guesswork and additional adjustments.
Innovation Solution
A device with a main body and stabilizer portion that engages the mandible and maxilla to accurately position a dental apparatus, ensuring proper alignment and matching clinical vertical dimension of occlusion, even after surgical changes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If laboratory articulators and dental stone models are used to simulate clinical jaw relations, then preferred jaw relations can be established, but transferring dimensions from articulator to patient's mouth lacks precision and causes misalignment
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a surgical guide as an intermediary device that bridges the articulator and the patient's mouth. The surgical guide includes a positioning portion that engages with the patient's jaw and a guide portion that directs the dental apparatus to the correct position, thereby mediating the dimension transfer process and improving both precision and reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The surgical guide is designed with pre-configured positioning features and alignment markers that are prepared in advance based on the articulator data. This preliminary preparation ensures that when the guide is placed in the patient's mouth, the correct dimensions and alignment are automatically established without requiring real-time adjustments
2Adaptability or versatility
If bone, tissue, and/or teeth are removed from the patient's mouth during dental surgery, then clinical VDO increases at the surgical site, but this creates differences between clinical and laboratory data
Solution Approach 1:
The surgical guide incorporates adjustable parameters that allow it to accommodate changes in VDO caused by surgical removal of bone, tissue, or teeth. The guide can be modified or repositioned to maintain accurate dimensional relationships even when the underlying anatomical structure has changed during surgery
3Ease of operation
If graduated incisal pins are used to increase or decrease VDO during the procedure, then some adjustment can be made, but the precision needed for fully accurate alignment is not achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the imprecise mechanical adjustment method (graduated incisal pins) with a more accurate guidance system. The surgical guide uses a positioning portion with engagement features that mechanically lock into the patient's jaw, providing stable and precise positioning without the guesswork and imprecision associated with manual pin adjustments
Data Source
AI summary
A device for arranging a fabricated dental apparatus with respect to jaw members of a patient during a restorative dental procedure includes a main body and a stabilizer portion. The main body is configured to support the fabricated dental apparatus and includes either a mandible surface configured to engage a mandible of a patient or a maxillary surface configured to engage a maxilla of a patient. The stabilizer portion includes a maxillary surface or a mandible surface, respectively, and is configured to be removably fitted to a maxilla or mandible of the patient, respectively. Thus, the main body and the stabilizer portion predictably position the fabricated dental apparatus with respect to the mandible and the maxilla to facilitate installation of the dental apparatus onto the mandible and the maxilla in a proper alignment.