Dental implant is an artificial replacement of natural tooth made of titanium,
a costly material, as it binds up with the jaw bone. Osseointegrated implant
and fibrointegrated implant are the two types of new dental implants available.
In these
two types of implant, osseointegrated implant is the most widely used
implant. Both these implants use titanium material. Due to this material’s
binding nature, a structural as well as functional connection is established
between the implant and the living bone.
The titanium screw in the typical implant looks a lot like tooth root.
The place in the gum tissue where the jaw bone is to be exposed is injected
with local anesthesia (in case of single tooth implant) / general anesthesia
(in case of several implants).
And then a flap is cut on the gum tissue and the jaw bone is exposed.
A precision hole also termed as osteotomy is then drilled into the jaw
bone and implant is placed inside it.
The specialists
involved in the dental implant procedure are oral surgeons, periodontists,
prosthodontists. Single dental implant surgery gets completed in an hour
and to do the surgery an incision in the gum tissue is made to expose
to the jaw bone. Generally the dental implant procedure involves various
surgeries and processes including bone grafting.
Hence the whole procedure takes a number of months. Bone grafting refers
to the fusion of the implant root to the living bone i.e binding itself
to the jaw bone.
After surgery, the number of months required to heal depends upon the
patient’s mouth dental health. After healing only implant restoration
can be done by placing the abutment on the top of the implant.
Until it is healed, a temporary prosthetic tooth is placed during the
bone grafting period. This is done so that the patient does not bite the
place where the surgery is done.
Once it is healed, the temporary tooth is removed and abutment is placed.
After tooth extraction is done, the dental implant is placed by selecting
the suitable approach from the various approaches available.
Approaches to Place Dental Implant after Performing Tooth Extraction
• Placing the new dental implant immediately after post-extraction.
• Placing the new dental implant after a delay of 15 days to 3 months
depending on patient’s mouth dental health.
• Placing the new dental implant after 3 months duration.
Different
Types of Dental Implant loading procedure
These are classified based on the time taken for loading dental implant:
• Immediately loading dental implant
• Loading the dental implant in a short duration of 1 – 12 weeks.
• Loading the new dental implant after 3 – 6 months.
• Late loading of dental implant after more than 6 months.
New dental
implant gives a permanent solution to the missing or broken tooth. There
might be some failures due to poor osseointegration but most of dental
implant replacements are done successfully.
