DENTURE

摘要

The basic plate portion proper of a full-mouth denture is molded in the usual manner for mating engagement over buccal, lingual and corresponding frontal gum surfaces of the patient's jaw; and around the arch of said plate portion it is specially molded on its mating interior. In this respect said interior will in all cases afford one or more partial depth depressions which mate precisely with the remaining stub of a partially worn or otherwise physically damaged natural tooth or teeth. Optionally, the molding of the plate portion may be such as to fit nicely with a surface of the gum at which there may have been a tooth extraction at one or more locations, as well as to afford an appropriate opening or openings to matingly receive one or more sound and undamaged full-height or permanently capped teeth, so that the basic plate portion is fully mated to the jaw about the entire dental arch. At spaces corresponding to the locations of the worn tooth stubs, tooth members simulating in appearance that of the originals of the stubs are molded to the exterior of the basic denture plate portion; being backed by solid grinder formations which are also rigidly bonded to correspondingly shaped surfaces of said basic portion. These formations lie in direct vertical register with tooth stubs, so that masticating force is transmitted therethrough directly from the jaw. The replacement tooth shell components are thus located a trifle laterally outwardly of the grinder portions or formations, hence of the existing tooth stubs for which they substitute; and the arrangement of such shells in relation to other tooth parts of the denture and/or undamaged teeth in the mouth is such as to afford a natural-appearing tooth array all around the dental arch. In instances in which there has been an extraction and no tooth stub is present, the denture mates fully about the gum alone, and in this zone a fully sized and shaped replacement tooth portion is bonded to the plate portion. Otherwise, the stub-engaging portions of the plate anchor the latter to the jaw, the plate similarly anchors to existing undamaged teeth, and migration of any such tooth, damaged or not, is prevented.