Compleo: An integrated Approach to Dental Implants

Implementing Dental Implants may involve a number of dental specialists at multiple locations. Dr. Singh integrates these functions to save time and money.

Dr.Singh:

I use that analogy a lot because most people don’t understand the dental implant and it’s significance. Is it a tooth? Is it a bridge? They get confused sometimes. I like to say that an implant is an artificial root, and that’s all it is. The rest, whether it be a crown or an arch, is built up above the implant. Now with the analogy of the building, the implant would be the foundation. Those are the posts or pillars that you put into the ground and never see again once the building is built. And the structure that needs to be built on top of that, in this case the crowns, the bridges, or the arches, wouldn’t be possible without the foundation (the dental implants). 

Dr.Singh:

The foundation is very important because essentially what we are trying to do is build the structure of teeth on top of the dental implants. If forces are to be centred and balanced, then ideally, when someone is chewing, those forces would be directed along the long axis of the implant… and the implant should be sitting in the best volume of bone possible in that area, so everything is very well supported in order to get the best possible end result.

Dr.Singh:

The integrated approach, in my opinion is very beneficial and is the reason why I got into the different phases of implants. The challenge that we had earlier was that one person was placing the implant, and a second person was doing the restorations (adding the crowns). The surgeon, the person placing the implant, would simply place the implant in the middle of the bone, and would not necessarily align it in the best possible manner for the structure that was going to be built on top of that implant later. These days we use almost a backwards approach to the placement of dental implants… we look at where the crowns need to be, and place the implants directly underneath that. So back to the analogy of the building, we decide exactly what type of building that we want, and then we place the implants. It wouldn’t make any sense to show someone an open lot and say put some pillars up there for me, I want to build a house. The person could put pillars all over the place without any idea of what the house is supposed to look like. Those pillars wouldn’t necessarily be in the ideal place. And that sometimes used to happen within dentistry, where the surgeon would place the implants, and said “that’s the best bone that I had there”. But the restoring dentist would say, that they couldn’t place a tooth there, because it would look totally unnatural and wouldn’t function well in the end.

Dr.Singh:

Its essentially working from the same plan. If we go back to our building analogy, we’re the architects, and we can determine the exact structure and design of the building, and place the ideal foundation underneath it. And we have control of all aspects of the placement of the foundation… So there isn’t any miscommunication or any differences of opinion as to where it should go. We can place it in the optimal final position because we know where it is going to be. Once we have decided what we are going to restore, we can then decide what is the ideal implant for the job, and what is the ideal and appropriate position.