Enhancement of the aesthetic zone is a common reason for patients to seek dental care. This article describes a protocol for the examination, assessment and treatment planning for a patient seeking a solution to an aesthetic concern. The technique of undertaking an intra-oral ‘mock-up’ using resin composite as a diagnostic approach can be particularly helpful when planning for future prosthodontic rehabilitation. The latter can allow the operator and patient to visualize crudely what is aesthetically and functionally possible, given the constraints imposed by that patient. The patient has ultimately managed in a minimally invasive manner.
Clinical Relevance: It can be very tempting for a dental operator to impose his/her concepts of the ‘artistic ideal’ when planning for care in the smile zone. Such ideals are largely based on established universal aesthetic principles of tooth colour, size, shape, form, position, symmetry and proportion. However, beauty is a very subjective matter. It is essential for the operator to listen attentively to his/her patient's concerns. Meticulous patient examination and assessment are absolutely critical factors in attempting to attain a successful outcome. The use of reversible, chairside intra-oral mock-up techniques can not only help with the transference of essential information to the dental technician when planning for restorative intervention in the smile zone, but can also allow the patient to gain an insight and indeed contribute his/her views to the possible restorative endpoint, respectively.
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Dental patients may frequently attend expressing a desire to improve the aesthetics of their ‘smile’. Indeed, it has been reported that the latter is an increasingly important factor in a patient's decision to seek dental care. This has resulted in many practitioners devoting a considerable proportion of their clinical time towards providing aesthetic dental care.
Aesthetic dentistry involves the harmonious integration of the principles of smile design, material selection, and patient communication in order to satisfy the expectations of today's increasingly educated dental patient. This is accomplished by the operator having an in-depth knowledge (and experience) of facial aesthetics, tooth morphology, communication skills, and appropriate restorative material application technique.1 According to Goldstein, ‘aesthetic dentistry is the art of dentistry in its purest form’.2
The successful resolution of any aesthetic problem for a given patient is reliant on the need for a detailed patient history and meticulous assessment, which will pave the way for an accurate aesthetic diagnosis.3 Open-ended questions should be asked, to allow the patient to define ‘What they want’, enabling optimal communication between the dentist and the patient.
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