Dental Overlay Guide for Precise Tooth Structure Removal
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing dentist tools are inadequate for guiding cutting tools along complex movements, particularly on teeth, limiting their ability to perform precise removals and requiring skilled expertise, and they are not suitable for preparing teeth for further treatments like crowns or bridges.
Innovation Solution
A method and tool with an overlay featuring two guiding edges spaced apart by at least 0.5 mm, allowing the cutting tool to follow complex movements and tilt variations, enabling precise guidance and reducing reliance on dentist skill, by determining and producing guiding edges that contact the cutting tool to guide it along a predetermined path.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional dentist tools are used for removing tooth structure, then the dentist can perform the procedure, but the precision and accuracy are limited by the dentist's skill and experience
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a template as an intermediary device between the dentist and the cutting tool. The template includes guiding edges that physically guide the cutting tool along predetermined paths, thereby mediating the interaction and ensuring precise tooth structure removal regardless of the dentist's skill level. The template acts as a mediator that translates the dentist's rough guidance into precise cutting movements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the reliance on the dentist's manual skill and experience (human mechanical control) with a mechanically predetermined guiding system. The guiding edges in the template create mechanical constraints that force the cutting tool to follow specific paths, substituting human skill-based control with mechanical precision control.
2Productivity
If conventional tools are used without guiding means, then the procedure can be completed, but multiple visits are required increasing time and contamination risk
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-determining the exact paths and movements needed for cutting tool operation through the template's guiding edges. All necessary guidance is prepared in advance in the template, allowing the dentist to execute the procedure in a single visit without needing to return for additional adjustments or corrections, thereby reducing contamination risk and increasing productivity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If simple guiding edges are used, then the device is easy to manufacture, but it cannot guide complex movements and tilt variations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent moves from simple linear guiding edges to three-dimensional guiding surfaces and edges that can accommodate complex movements and tilt variations. The guiding means are designed with multiple edges and surfaces that work together in three-dimensional space to constrain the cutting tool's movement in multiple degrees of freedom, enabling complex guided movements while remaining manufacturable.
Data Source
AI summary
Method for producing a dentist tool formed by an overlay to be used by a dentist in removing tooth structure, said method comprising the steps of: acquiring three-dimensional data relating to a shape of a tooth and at least a part of a neighbouring tooth; processing said three-dimensional data with a computer so as to determine an overlay fitting said tooth and fitting at least said part of said neighbouring tooth; further processing said three-dimensional data with said computer so as to determine a predetermined part of tooth structure to be removed from said tooth so as to prepare said tooth for further treatment; determining at least two guiding edges of which a first and a second guiding edge are spaced apart from each other by a distance d of at least 0.5 mm, said guiding edges being configured so as to enable said dentist cutting tool to be guided by simultaneously contacting said first and said second guiding edge in such a manner as to enable a guided removal of at least partially said predetermined part of tooth structure; producing said determined overlay having said determined guiding edges.