Variety should be spice of your cementation life

What I quite often hear from our clients is how pleased they are when placing an IPS e.max restoration, mostly due to the flexibility of cementation selection. Crowns and bridges, for example, can be cemented according to adhesive, self-adhesive and conventional methods, whereas inlays and veneers can be cemented adhesively as usual. The Ivoclar Vivadent…

Getting to grips with the explosive demand for quality veneers

We’ve talked before about the increasing importance placed on veneers, and the explosive demand for veneers in recent years. A patient today isn’t just looking for a healthy and functional restorative solution: They also want an aesthetically pleasing result. All-ceramic veneers, being both biocompatible and aesthetically pleasing, are rapidly growing in popularity. IPS e.max allows…

The ethics of aesthetics, Part 3 – The trouble with selling

Cosmetic dentistry’s rise to public awareness carries a delicate question about ‘selling.’ As we established ealier, the private dentist must operate as a business, and will often use aesthetic dissatisfaction as the genesis of a treatment plan. We also established that this is acceptable behaviour in today’s age of demand for aesthetic treatments. However, we…

The ethics of aesthetics, Part 2 – Informed consent

Combine more cosmetic dentistry awareness with increased media attention, and we find clinicians treating and managing many requests for personal image enhancement. Previously, patients wouldn’t ask for the treatments, or maybe even the requests were ignored. To some patients today aesthetics are of such importance that —even if clinically unnecessary— these procedures can no longer…

Despite the fact that these veneers quite often, and quite quickly fell off, they were quickly embraced – History of the veneer

We all know what a veneer is, and many reading this will be well versed in how to apply them to a patient. However, do we all know where the veneer came from, from its humble roots to its explosion in celebrity? I’ll explore this history, in case a patient or partner ever asks. Dental…

“The clinician may not feel that they can, or are ethically able to, do what the patient is asking.”

Imposing Aesthetic Preferences While it is their proper role to advise and guide a patient toward a treatment plan, aesthetics clinicians should not impose their own preferences rather than comply with the patient’s wishes. It can be argued that the success of any treatment or procedure is directly related to patient satisfaction. These days, patients…

“It is unfortunate, but true, that many practitioners don’t understand colour perception science”

As you know, dental schools at best might devote only a few hours to colour science; at worst, they completely ignore it. As early as 1931, E. B. Clark wrote of this in his article The Colour Problem in Dentistry. During the following seventy years, many articles have been authored by leading clinicians and colour…