Dental instruments

  Dental instruments refer to the tools which dental professionals use to provide dental treatment. They include tools to examine, manipulate, restore and remove teeth and surrounding oral structures.

Additional recommended knowledge

Weighing the right way

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

What is the Correct Way to Check Repeatability in Balances?

Standard instruments

Standard instruments are the instruments used to examine restore and extract teeth and manipulate tissues

Examination instruments

These tools allow the dental professional to manipulate tissues, to allow better visual access during treatment or during dental examination.

Mirror

Main article: Mouth mirror

Dental mirrors are used by the dentist or dental auxiliary to view a mirror image of the teeth in locations of the mouth where visibility is difficult or impossible. They also are useful for reflecting light onto desired surfaces, and with retraction of soft tissues to improve access or vision.

Tweezers

Probes

• Sickle probe (dental explorer),
• Periodontal probe, straight probe

Retractors

• Mouth prop, dental mirror, cheek retractor, tongue retractor, lip retractor.

Local anesthesia

Dental anesthesia and Dental syringe.

Dental drills

  High speed air driven, slow speed, friction grip, surgical hand piece. Straight handpiece with Christmas tree bur

Burs

Dental Burs cutting surface are either made of a multifluted tungsten carbide, a diamond coated tip or a stainless steel multi fluted rosehead. There are many different types and classifications of burs some of the most common are: the round bur (sizes ¼ to 10) or inverted cone (sizes 33½ to 37L) Burs are also classified by the type of shank. For instance a latch type, or right angle bur is only used in the slow speed handpiece with contra-angle attachment. Long shank or shaft is only used in the slow speed when the contra-angle is not in use, and finally a friction grip bur which is a small bur used only in the high speed handpiece.

There are many bur shapes

Operative burs

Flat fissure, pear-shaped, football, round, tapered, flame, chamfer, bevel. bud bur, steel ,inverted cone ,diamond,brown stone, greenstone

Restorative instruments

Excavators

• spoon excavator: which is used to remove soft carious decay
• half hollenbach: this instrument is usually used to test for overhangs or flash
• Chisels:

Straight - bevels the cavosurface margin and used in 3, 4 and 5 classifications of cavities on the maxillary. Wedelstaedt - only used in the anterior for classes 3, 4 and 5 as well. Bin Angle - this is held in a pen grasp and used for class 2 maxillary only.

Burnishers

• flat plastic, ball burnisher, beavertail burnisher, cone burnisher

Pluggers

• Amalgam plugger, 49 plugger

Periodontal scalers

Currettes

Universal currettes, Gracey currettes

Ultrasonic scalers

Prosthodontic instruments

Removable prosthodontics

Spatula, Fox plane, Willis Gauge, Bunsen burner, wax knife, Le cron, calipers

Extraction/surgical instruments

Dental forceps

Upper Universals, Upper Universal Fine, Lower universals, Upper Canine, Upper straight long, Upper straight short, Upper right molar, Upper left molar, Upper wisdom tooth, Greyhound, Root, Bayonet

Elevators

Narrow and wide straight and curved luxators, Couplands, Warrick James, Cryer, periosteal elevator, root-tip pick, potts, Cogswell-A.

Chisels

Osteotome

Orthodontic instruments

Ligature

distal end cutters,weigharts

Endodontic instruments

K-file, hedstrom file, gates glidden, finger spreader, Lentulo spiral, straight probe, apex locator, microscope, plugger.

Technology

Lasers

Computer assisted modelling

See also

• Dentistry
• Dentist & dental auxiliary

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