Taking dental impressions is essential to many dental treatments, and it’s imperative to select the right materials and tools to ensure a premium result. Part of this means choosing the right impression products when shopping for dental supplies in Australia.
What are dental impressions? They create a negative reproduction of the teeth and other adjacent tissues of the oral cavity, which is used to make an exact model of the teeth and gums. This is used for everything from orthodontic planning to the creation of dental retention devices, clear aligners, dentures, crowns, bridges, and much more.
There are several considerations when choosing the right dental impression materials, to benefit both patient and dentist. These include but are not limited to:
- Odour and taste
- Toxicity
- Temperature, humidity, and dimensional stability
- Ease of handling
- Texture and consistency
- Strength and elasticity
- Accuracy
- Results/setting time
- Water compatibility
- Shelf life
While some circumstances may require the use of dental plaster, polyether, or impression bite wax, the most commonly used impression materials are silicones and alginates.
Silicones
Dental silicones are the more elastic impression material, and they allow for deformation recovery and hence are much easier to remove after they have set in the mouth. It is the more comfortable material for the patient. Other benefits of silicones are their superior accuracy, dimensional stability, and the ease with which they can be disinfected. They are, however, more difficult to remove from moulds, sensitive to pollutants, and can’t be handled with latex gloves.
Silicones are widely used in:
- Root canal dentistry
- Prosthetic dentistry
- Implant dentistry
- To reproduce or record tooth fractures and occlusal relationships
- To achieve impressions of both bony and soft tissue anatomy
- For functional impressions
- For total or partial jaw impressions
Alginates
Alginates are elastic materials derived from marine algae. Like silicones, they are also used to make impressions of teeth and gums. Alginate is more affordable than silicone impression material, has a good shelf life, handles easily, and is compatible with water. Its disadvantages include poor elastic recovery, dimensional instability, and it is not able to be properly disinfected.
Dental alginates are more specifically used in:
- Prostheses construction
- Surgery
- Dentures
- Articulator assembly
- Orthodontic study models
Adam Dental Supplies offers a large range of dental impression materials and accessories – including:
Shop with us today for all of your dental clinic needs! We are Australia’s premier dental products distributor with everything you need from the local and international manufacturers and brands you prefer. From dental chairs and dental needles to face masks for dentists and everything in between, we have it all, at the best prices available.