SPACE MAINTAINERS

Crowns for Primary Teeth

A crown is a cover placed over the entire tooth that is made to look like a tooth. It is used for teeth that are badly damaged or decayed.

It's important to try to save primary teeth until they are ready to fall out on their own. Primary teeth are important for several reasons:

• Chewing food
• Allowing speech to develop normally
  
• Maintaining spaces for the permanent teeth
  
• Guiding the permanent teeth into position
  

 

Types of Crowns

 1. Stainless Steel

• Pre-formed, stainless steel crowns are the most common crowns used in primary teeth.
• They are made as metal shells of varying sizes that can be customized to fit any tooth.
  
• These crowns are durable and relatively easy to place.
  

 

2. Strip crowns  

•  These also are called acid-etched resin crowns.
• They are usually used for front teeth that need repair.
  
• They are made using a form that is filled with a tooth-colored plastic material and placed over the tooth.
  
• The durability of a strip crown depends on how much tooth is left and how well the tooth was prepared for the crown.
  
• Injury to the tooth can break, loosen or dislodge this type of crown.
  

 

3. Open-faced steel crowns

• The front area of a steel crown is cut away and replaced with tooth-colored plastic.
• These crowns look nicer than stainless steel crowns, but some metal usually shows at the edges and on the back of the tooth.
  
• These crowns are very durable and stay in place well.
  

 

4. Veneered steel crowns  

• These crowns have a tooth-colored face bonded to the front.
• They look good and last well.
  
• However, the facings occasionally break or pop off.
  

 

5 . Zirconia crowns 

• Zirconia is a hard, tooth-colored material similar to ceramic, but stronger.
• Like stainless steel crowns, zirconia crowns are pre-made to specific sizes.
  
• The teeth are adjusted to the crown.
  
• These crowns cost more than stainless steel crowns.
  
• They are most often used for the front four to six teeth.
  

Space Maintainers 

Space maintenance can be defined as the provision of an appliance (active or passive )which is concerned only with the control of space loss without taking into consideration measures to supervise the development of dentition.

Space maintainers are appliances used to maintain space or regain minor amounts of space lost,so as to guide the unerupted tooth into a proper position in the arch.

Ideal Requirements : 

•  It should maintain the entire mesio-distal space created by a lost tooth.
•  It must restore the function as far as possible & prevent over-eruption of opposing teeth.
  
•  It should be simple in construction.
  
•  It should be strong enough to withstand the functional forces.
  
•  It should not exert excessive stress on adjoining teeth.
  
•  It must permit maintenance of oral hygiene.
  
•  It must not restrict normal growth & development and natural adjustments which take place during the transition from deciduous to permanent dentition.
  
•  It should not come in the way of other functions.
  

 

Appliance Therapy : 

•  The Band & Loop
•  The Lingual Arch
  
•  The Distal Shoe
  
•  The Removable Appliance