Digital Impressions
Portland, OR
 For years, whenever an impression was needed, whether it was for a restoration, such as a crown or dentures, or for orthodontic treatment, taking impressions was done using impression putty. Impression putty is both messy and uncomfortable. Today, advances in dental technology have allowed us to provide you with a higher quality of treatment in a more comfortable, faster, more effective manner. At West End Dental, we can capture impressions of your mouth without impression putty thanks to the use of digital impressions.
What Are Digital Impressions?
Intraoral scanners allow us to take digital impressions of your mouth. It is a portable machine equipped with a wand attached to a touchscreen monitor. Rather than using goopy, messy impression putty, we simply move the handheld wand around in your mouth. As it moves, the optical scanner captures an impression of your teeth and gums. The impression is then displayed in 3D on the monitor almost instantly. With an intraoral scanner, you can see your new smile with restorations or follow orthodontic treatment before we even begin.
Improved Experiences with Impressions
Taking impressions with traditional impression putty is both messy and uncomfortable. It can also cause gagging, which could trigger anxiety. Even with older digital impressions, the process can be quite time-consuming. Images need to be captured separately. For every image, the machine needs to be repositioned. With the intraoral scanner, we move the wand in your mouth, and it seamlessly captures a full arch scan in as little as 60 seconds.
High-Quality Images in 3D
Once the image is captured, it is displayed almost instantly on the touchscreen monitor. The 3D image is shown in enhanced color, which allows us to take a much more thorough look at the condition of your mouth. We can then use the touchscreen to rotate the impression to see your mouth from multiple angles and zoom in to take a closer look at the smaller details. All of these features allow us to determine the best possible treatment for your needs and create a more effective treatment plan to provide you with the best possible results.
One Scan, Multiple Uses
With the intraoral scanner, a single impression of your mouth can be used for multiple different purposes depending upon your specific situation. This allows us to create a highly customized treatment plan that will provide you with optimal results. A digital impression taken can be used to
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Create dental restorations, such as veneers, crowns, or bridges
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Create abutments and crowns for dental implants - The abutments work to help stabilize your crowns when they are placed on the posts.
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Connect to orthoCAD technology to help plan effective orthodontic treatment
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Design and create customized clear aligners
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Connect to in-house milling for same day restorations.+
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Store your impressions in your digital file - This allows us to easily access your impressions when necessary without having to worry about an impression getting lost or broken. |
Intraoral scanning allows us to greatly improve the experience of getting dental impressions while also enabling us to provide you with incredibly accurate treatment and restorations. For more information on digital impressions, call West End Dental at (503) 446-2957 today.
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