Dental Implant Candidacy

So dental implants are, you know, certainly a very hot topic in dentistry today, for good reason. Whenever a patient presents with an interest, whether they are missing one, several, or all of their teeth, the process is to determine what their expectations are and then to determine whether they are a candidate to receive implants, aka do they have the bone volume and the health features to accomplish that. Once that's done then we work very closely with our surgical liaison, which they'll do their own comprehensive examination and they will create three dimensional models and imagery of the actual jaw bones that the dental implants need to go into. Once that's been collaborated and consulted on then the plan of action goes in place. And the implants go in. After a certain healing period then they return and we'd be able to create the tooth or teeth or the dentures or bridges that go on those implants. And that can take, you know, a varied amount of time, you know. It can be "teeth in a day" or it can be something that requires a bit more time. The best candidates are typically someone who has stopped growing. So we're looking at, you know, boys, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 years old, you know, ladies maybe a little bit younger. Basically someone who is, you know, past puberty and from that point to infinitum, you know. We've got patients that are in their 80s and late 80s and early 90s that are getting implants. Patient feedback, you know, post-treatment when it's all accomplished, they are probably if not the most appreciative, they are certainly one of the most appreciative groups of patients that we ever treat as dentists. To give them the ability to chew and eat just about anything that they would like to chew and eat, particularly for someone who has been dentally compromised for years, oftentimes decades, to be able to give them the self-esteem to be able to smile without dentures falling down or becoming loose, and the opportunity to give someone back who had basically a pristine dentition before an accident and give that back to them, you can't imagine the level of appreciation that those patients feel when we're accomplished at the end of the treatment.