Functional Dentistry is a buzzword used by a variety of educators marketing their dental courses. The term “functional” reflects the importance of providing dentistry that works in harmony with the various functions of the stomatognathic system. These include mastication, swallowing, speech, bruxing, esthetics and respiration.
But why should you care? Current dental education emphasizes how to do a variety of procedures, often without the context of where and when they are best used. In addition, dental training commonly considers the mouth as a simple hinge mechanism and ignores the complex movements of the mandible that create the proper function.
What happens when we ignore these functions? Suboptimal results ensue which can include early failure of restorations, relapse of our orthodontic treatments, and dysfunction of our patient’s stomatognathic system including pain and loss of function. These iatrogenic consequences create unhappy patients and ultimately jeopardize our professional reputations. Our practices incur increased costs and we as dentists worry about these negative events.
Dental practitioners often blame their patients as being “non average” and difficult to treat. The reality is that every patient we see is unique and requires careful assessment of their function and any dysfunctions that are present before we begin treatment. In this way we can plan treatment in a precise manner and seek to improve our patient’s comfort and function through our therapies.
Why VieSID? Our mentor at the Vienna School of Interdisciplinary Dentistry, Professor Dr. Rudolph Slavicek recognized that all dental practitioners need to understand function and dysfunction. As both a physician and a dentist he understood the value of physical diagnosis and applied his diverse talents in developing a systematic method of diagnosing the presenting patient. This allows us to individualize our treatments from the simplest filling to the most complex reconstruction.
VieSID Educational programs are taught worldwide in 19 different centers including Canada. Our signature hands-on program, The VieSID Canada “Mini-Residency”, is a fifteen-day curriculum taught in three modules of five days. A maximum of 12 students are accepted at a time to ensure an excellent learning environment.
A typical day in the office. You are busy, you are running behind and your hygiene patient says, “Doctor I have a sore jaw, and it clicks”. You know that you have NO time to deal with this. And all too often the patient is told “you need a night guard”.
What is the hinge axis? Any three dimensional object that rotates does so around a central axis. In the case of the mandible we have two condyles joined by a rigid body (the mandible). Location of the hinge axis of the mandible can be used diagnostically (electronic Condylography, and hinge axis transfer of study casts to an articulator).
VieSID Canada Mini-Residency 2024 finished in June. Our exceptional students spent 15 days in 3-5 day modules studying Occlusal Medicine and Functional Dentistry
Professor Rudolph Slavicek emphasized the importance of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) as part of his gnathologic triad concept. It is critical that we consider the occlusion, the muscles and the TMJ in all of our diagnostics and treatments as they must exist in harmony with each other
What is the “elephant in the room”? The question we receive most is why should I take programs from VieSID? our comprehensive hands-on programs offer extensive training that benefits all dentists and applies to every procedure completed.
In previous blogs we have discussed our patient interview, and clinical examination. To have a thorough understanding of the stomatognathic system it is essential to palpate the muscles that are responsible for creating movements that allow function to occur. Mastication, swallowing, speech, bruxism and respiration are the main functions that we need to consider.
