Digital Occlusion: introducing a teaching platform
- introduce a new paradigm in occlusion that can predict and prevent anatomy breakdown
- demonstrate the feasibility of creating an Occlusion Department
- review occlusal concepts and philosophies
- teach how to take force scans and how to analyze force patterns
- introduce clinical diagnostic force applications in the Clinical Applications Card Deck
- present an ongoing study of patients with interesting envelopes of function patterns in the Case Card Deck
Most dental practices have gone progressively more digital over the last 20 years. Scheduling, billing, record-keeping, radiology, and photography are performed electronically while occlusion has been left behind in the analog age. To this day, most dental professionals rely exclusively on subjective articulating paper marks to measure and correct occlusions without precise knowledge of intensity, direction, and sequence of contacts. Posselt’s envelope of border movements defines the boundaries of a repetitive envelope of function. Every patient possesses a distinctive envelope characterized by a unique landing sequence of force contacts which can be measured, recorded, and analyzed. Such digitized diagnostic information will revolutionize occlusion in the age of digital dentistry.