From Volume 43, Issue 2, March 2016 | Pages 159-166
Dealing with patients who are unable to tolerate dentures can present a challenge to the general dental practitioner (GDP). Careful assessment of patients and their dentures will identify any causes of the intolerance to dentures. Training plates are a useful technique that can be used to allow patients to become accustomed to removable prosthesis but will inevitably lengthen the treatment process.
There are a number of treatment options available to replace missing teeth. This can include implant-retained prostheses, fixed prostheses and removable prostheses. One of the most straightforward is the removable option, providing either complete or partial dentures. The majority of patients that are provided with a removable prosthesis cope well but there are some patients that struggle to tolerate them.
The demographics of the UK adult population is changing. People are living longer, with the population of over 65-year-olds estimated at 17%,1 but predicted to increase by approximately 30% over the next 25 years, and it is also predicted that the number of patients in the over 85 years age group will rise even more dramatically.2 The Adult Dental Health Survey in 2009 showed that 19% of adults wore dentures, of these 13% wore partial dentures and 6% complete dentures.3 The Adult Dental Health Surveys also show that the incidence of edentulism in England and Wales has decreased from 37% in 1968 to 6% in 2009 and that elderly patients are retaining their natural teeth into their older age and fewer are becoming edentate.3 It is often stated that the need for complete denture treatment will decline as the elderly retain teeth for longer, but many elderly patients still require prosthodontic replacement.2,4,5
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