Dental Teeth Cleaning Equipment & Their Uses
Dentists use several kinds of tools to clean their patient's teeth. Many of these handheld instruments are used on particular areas of the teeth and with certain cleaning strokes. Instruments used in periodontal procedures, which involve diseases of the gums and teeth, usually consist of a long, thin shank and one or two angled heads that have very specific uses.
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Types
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Tooth cleaning dental instruments include scalers and curettes, hoes and files, markers and probes, knives, scalpels and several different styles of chisels. Ultrasound dental units and autoclaves are commonly used in dental practices as adjuncts to handheld instruments. All of these tools are manufactured to perform specific functions in dental care.
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Function
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Which instrument the dentist uses depends on the size and placement of tooth calculus and stains. A periodontal hoe is commonly used to remove debris from larger tooth pockets, while a curette is used in a smaller pocket. The curette also removes calculus from root surfaces and a file then planes this area smooth. Scalers work to remove stains from the tooth crown; hoes and chisels remove large amounts of calculus and tartar from the tooth surface. A dentist will use a pull stroke with all of these instruments. Markers and probes are used in dentistry to define the depth of soft tissue pockets and sub-gingival (below the gum line) bone loss. Dentists routinely use periodontal knives and scalpels with a push-pull stroke to incise gingival tissues during deep root cleaning.
An ultrasonic dental unit uses sound waves operating at 25,000 cycles per second to generate energy that travels down the shank to a detachable head (usually a scaler or hoe head). As the instrument vibrates, calculus and stains separate from the tooth surfaces while an aerosol mist keeps tooth surfaces cool. Most dental clinics use a self-locking apparatus called an autoclave to sterilize dental instruments with steam pressure, destroying any microorganisms that might go into a patient's mouth.
Features
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Dental instruments are commonly made of stainless steel, giving them durability and longevity. While their shanks are usually similar, they may have either one or two heads with different structures and capabilities. Scalers have pointed, U-shaped blades along each side and may be either single- or double-ended. Curettes have two sharp angular blades on both ends of the instrument. The hoe has a thicker, blunted L-shaped blade sometimes with a small hook on the end; while files commonly have a series of small, short blades angling away from the instrument. Periodontal chisels may have a flat, rectangular head or a pointed, angled end and dental knives have extremely sharp, cup-shades blades on one or both shank ends. Other disposable dental knives consist of a small curved scalpel blade fastened to a handle.
History
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A history of dental instruments begins with a bow drill used in ancient Sumeria to extract teeth and continues to the ancient Greeks who wielded forceps during the same procedure. The Greeks were also the first to use wire to stabilize loose teeth and broken jaws. During the Middle Ages, tooth extraction was performed using a tool called the dental pelican. It resembled a pelican's beak with a long structure to pry the tooth away from the gum, plus a small pocket to catch the tooth. In the late 18th century the pelican was replaced by the dental key, which resembles the modern bottle opener. It wasn't until the early 1900's that modern forceps were introduced into dental practices and that the practice of dentistry and its instruments began to evolve into what it is today.
Future
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The future of dentistry is going digital--many practices are presently using digital radiographs and the Gerson-Lehrmann Group is currently working on a 3D imaging program of the human skull and jaw. Tissue engineering and gene therapy to replace diseased tooth and gum tissue are being developed, as are high-speed hand instruments and modern restorative materials.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit "Free Macro White Teeth With Dental Floss and Red Lipstick Creative Commons" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: Pink Sherbet Photography (D. Sharon Pruitt) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
