Top 12 Dental Articulators

A dental articulator produces extremely protrusive and lateral movements that simulate a jaw’s movement- closing and opening the jaw. There are many things to know about dental articulators as they are very complex and require good research and experimentations to understand. This is a buying guide that explains the explains the usage, requirements, and features of having a dental articulator.

Uses of dental articulators

Dental articulators have many uses. It produces a border sliding diagnostic motion and plans dental conditions in both artificial and natural dentitions. It also plans procedures that involve contours, positions, and relationships of synthetic as well as natural teeth as they are both relatable to one another. Dental articulators aid in dental restoration and is helpful in studying and teaching mandibular and occlusion movements.

Requirements of dental articulators

There are a few things to keep in mind before using a particular dental articulator. One should hold casts in the correct relationships- vertical and horizontal. One should provide a positive vertical stop and agree to a face bow transferring record. The dental articulators should open and close hinging movements, and the parts which do not move should have a rigid construction. Some additional requirements include- an adjustable incisal table guide, flexible intercondylar width of elements, and removable mounting plates.

Advantages and limitations of dental articulators

Properly adjusted casts provide the user to visualize occlusions of the patients from a linguistic view. When using a dental articulator, a patient’s coordination is not of concern. The difficulty of refining the complete denture is significantly reduced when using dental articulators. This also reduces a patient’s chair and appointment time, making the process efficient. The only disadvantage of using them is that an articulator is made of plastic or metal. This means the metal ones show incorrect data due to metal fatigue.