What Exactly Is Smile Design?
At the beginning of dental treatments, patients often cannot predict what kind of result they will encounter. Although we dentists describe the procedures to be done and the prostheses we will create at the end, we naturally do not know what kind of result occurs in the minds of the patients. The whole of the materials and procedures used to both increase the motivation of the patients and explain how the result prosthesis will be, is called smile design.
While the smile design is determined, no action is taken on the teeth of the patients. Therefore, no pain or similar results are encountered. Photographs and digital x-rays of the patients are taken, and then conventional and digital measurements are taken from the mouth. Final prostheses are designed on these records and evaluated together with the patient.
If desired, final dentures are prepared in mock-up form (temporary dentures) and applied to the teeth. In this way, the resulting prosthesis will be able to seen in the mouth by the patient and the physician. If a temporary prosthesis can meet the expectations have been made, then the necessary abrasion processes are performed on the teeth and the processes for real prostheses are started.
Smile design prevents the creation of images that we are familiar with from the imaginaries and truths posts we see constantly on social media. Since patients can be given visual answers to the questions in their minds, patients’ trust in physicians increases, as well as the physicians can explain the final procedures they can do and that way working conditions and patient relations are relieved.
Smile design can be prepared only by making evaluations on conventional measures, or it can be prepared digitally. Therefore, the concept of digital smile design is now a more common and more frequently used application method. Digitally taken photos are processed by the physician in applications that developed for smile design and supported by artificial intelligence. Since these processes do not take as long as before, the design can be prepared in the same day. We, the physicians, prefer the digital smile design for our patients because it can save both time and cost.
