Will Dentures Ever Be Obsolete?

So long as folks lose teeth and want to chew something more than mashed potatoes there will be dentures.

They are certainly less common today than in our grandparents' day. Fluoridated water, Crest toothpaste, good dental anesthetics, and dental insurance covering the kids have greatly reduced tooth loss in Americans. As such, starting with the Boomers, a very large percentage will never need them, unlike most from my grandparents generation. Great! What they had available then was about as much fun as having a wooden leg. My grandparents kept them in a shirt pocket or in their purse for the most part.

Still, there are those not as fortunate as to have enough teeth for proper identification by the coroner if they do not die with their drivers license available. (Sorry. Was a passing thought. Kids now days probably have a tattoo registry. Yes. That is how my brain works when I am blogging,)

Any way, back on target here. 

Denture is a very generic term, just as SUV is. There are lots of variations, both for specific functional reasons (Chewing is the start of our digestive process -- it doesn't work well without proper processing before sending it to the stomach.) as well as anatomical considerations, comfort level desired, appearance related issues both facially and dentally, and underlying health considerations.  And just like SUVs, they make Pintos (a 60's thing) and they make Mercedes -- they both can get you there but one is certainly different in performance.

Dental implants have greatly changed what is possible to provide and even allows upgrades from the denture that simply floats on your lower arch or glued with some goop to more compact and removable ones partially or fully supported on implants to ones actually fastened in place and totally "Hollywood " as seen recently on some TV adds. I actually had a hygienist trying to measure the gums on a patient with that and was frustrated that she could not get any measurements until I told her that those were not his gums.

Patients are not locked into Grandma's denture. They may not be obsolete, but there are certainly options today that much improve their performance.