The term smile makeover, borrowed from the Anglo-American world, has recently found its way into aesthetic dentistry and can be translated as “beautification” or even “thorough alteration of the smile.” To help patients achieve a more attractive, engaging and confident smile, a wide variety of dental procedures may be required. “Laughter is the best medicine”, “Laughter is healthy”, “He who laughs lives longer and healthier”: who does not know these old folk sayings! And medicine has long been aware of how much truth there is in them. It is all the more unhealthy for a person who thinks he or she has to forbid himself or herself to laugh and even to smile because of aesthetic restrictions. In this context, even the simplest measures that help to achieve a more beautiful smile must be considered therapeutically useful. First and foremost, aesthetic dentistry is required, for example, in the form of:
- Regular professional dental cleaning (PZR) with powder jet and subsequent polishing, which helps as the simplest and yet very effective measure to plaque-free and thus brighter-looking teeth.
- Bleaching / laser bleaching: teeth whitening.
- Veneers: wafer-thin ceramic veneers can be bonded on for whitening and for lighter shape and position corrections and result in excellent aesthetic improvement with minimal loss of tooth structure.
These services of aesthetic dentistry consequently often go hand in hand with therapeutic measures from the field of orthodontics:
- Elimination of tooth misalignment, for example, with invisible tooth correction (Invisalign), regardless of the age of the patient.
- In adolescent growth phases, anomalies of jaw position and size can also still be influenced, for example, by functional orthodontics, multiband appliances, lingual technique, bionator, headgear and much more.
Conservative dentistry also makes a significant contribution to an aesthetic smile by replacing amalgam fillings or gold inlays with tooth-colored restorations such as plastic fillings or, for example, Cerec or ceramic inlays and many more. If the teeth are already damaged due to even greater loss of tooth structure, the specialist field of prosthetics can help to create a more beautiful smile with partial crowns or crowns made of aesthetic tooth-colored materials, and in cases of tooth loss with bridges or more extensive prosthetic restorations. Dental surgery may also be required, e.g. by placing implants and also by surgical measures of periodontology, because healthy gums are an indispensable part of the aesthetics of the smile. Beyond the dental field, a patient can take advantage of aesthetic surgery services.
The procedure
The various therapy steps for a Smile Makeover are based on a comprehensive assessment of the patient’s initial situation in combination with the aspects that are considered by the patient himself to be in need of improvement. A very clear tool for the patient is the procedure of the
A very clear aid for the patient is the digital imaging procedure, with which the patient can be given a very realistic before-and-after comparison based on his own images by means of computer simulation. This also gives the patient the opportunity to choose from a variety of therapy plans. All measures are based on parameters such as:
- Tooth color: bright teeth radiate health, cleanliness and freshness.
- Tooth shape: length-width relationship of the single tooth and incisors to each other; psychological effect of different tooth shapes.
- Tooth positions, psychological effect of different anterior tooth positions.
- Curve of the lower lip line, which is visually resumed by the upper jaw dental arch.
- Course of the bipupillary line (imaginary line through the pupils) compared to the masticatory plane or position of the anterior teeth.
- Course of the gum line
- Effect of tooth color in relation to face color
- And many more.
Ultimately, the Smile Makeover is a process by which each patient, taking into account many different parameters, can be helped with the help of aesthetic dentistry to his individual optimum: to an attractive smile with which he faces his communication partners open, confident and resolved.
