Patent Application
20230293266
The present disclosure generally relates to orthodontics. More specifically, it relates to a system and method for enhancing the function of orthodontic aligners.
It is believed that one of the first non-metal, removable devices for straightening teeth was first developed in 1945 by the American orthodontist Harold D. Kesling. The device was a removable, custom-designed appliance that looked and functioned similarly to a mouth guard. It was made of rubber and was used in conjunction with traditional braces and sped up the teeth movement. It was also considered the predecessor to aligners—also known as ‘one-piece plastic splints.’ By the mid-1960's researchers started to document the success aligners which by this time were now being used to make minor teeth corrections. By the 1980's plastic was replaced by silicon and these newer versions were known as ‘Elastomer Devices’ and could allow tooth movements of up to 3 mm over shorter periods of time. In 1993, American orthodontist, John Sheridan devised the ‘Essix retainer’ which is considered by many to be the first aligner system because it could be tweaked in order to induce varying tooth movement by inserting small pins. In 1997 two Stanford University students, Zia Chishti and Kelsey Worth, invented the ‘Invisalign’ and the concept involved a series of removable clear plastic aligners aimed at adults seeking discreet orthodontic treatment and is believed to be the first to use a series of computer-aided models taken from one single impression. While many orthodontists now offer aligners, what is needed is a way to further enhance the load capacity of such aligners.
In some examples, an aligner includes a body having a plurality of indentations for accepting teeth, and a pair of magnets, a first of the pair of magnets being coupled to the body of the aligner.
In some examples, a method of aligning a tooth includes providing an aligner including a body having a plurality of indentations for accepting teeth, and a pair of magnets, a first of the pair of magnets being coupleable to the body of the aligner, and exerting a force on a target tooth of the plurality of teeth via the pair of magnets.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, illustrate some, but not the only or exclusive, examples of embodiments and/or features.
Other aspects of the present disclosure shall be more readily understood when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and the following detailed description, neither of which should be considered limiting.
The device herein disclosed and described provides a solution to the shortcomings in the prior art through the disclosure of a system and method for enhancing the function of existing orthodontic aligners. An object of the disclosure is to enhance the loading ability of conventional aligners. The system may rely on small powerful magnets that when attracted to one another have the ability to move teeth.
Another object of the disclosure is to allow specific teeth to be moved further than other teeth that are being moved by the aligner at the same time. For example, an orthodontist may select an aligner that fits several back teeth and then affixes magnets on several front teeth to allow them to move at a different rate of speed than the rear teeth.
Another object of the disclosure is to allow aligner magnets to be used temporarily during a treatment. For example, an orthodontist may choose to have a patient wear an aligner without magnets for several months and then have the patient switch to magnetized aligners.
Another object of the disclosure is to provide a means to vary magnetic loads depending on which teeth require specific movements. For example, an orthodontist may choose to position weak magnets on the rear teeth that are not required to move much and place stronger magnets on front teeth to allow the load to be increased and move front teeth at a different rate.
It is briefly noted that upon a reading of this disclosure, those skilled in the art will recognize various means for carrying out these intended features of the disclosure. As such it is to be understood that other methods, applications and systems adapted to the task may be configured to carry out these features and are therefore considered to be within the scope and intent of the present disclosure, and are anticipated. With respect to the above description, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment of the herein disclosed disclosure in detail, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The disclosure herein described is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways which will be obvious to those skilled in the art. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present disclosed device. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction and methodology insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure. As used in the claims to describe the various inventive aspects and embodiments, “comprising” means including, but not limited to, whatever follows the word “comprising”. Thus, use of the term “comprising” indicates that the listed elements are required or mandatory, but that other elements are optional and may or may not be present. By “consisting of” is meant including, and limited to, whatever follows the phrase “consisting of”. Thus, the phrase “consisting of” indicates that the listed elements are required or mandatory, and that no other elements may be present.
By “consisting essentially of” is meant including any elements listed after the phrase, and limited to other elements that do not interfere with or contribute to the activity or action specified in the disclosure for the listed elements. Thus, the phrase “consisting essentially of” indicates that the listed elements are required or mandatory, but that other elements are optional and may or may not be present depending upon whether or not they affect the activity or action of the listed elements. The objects features, and advantages of the present disclosure, as well as the advantages thereof over existing prior art, which will become apparent from the description to follow, are accomplished by the improvements described in this specification and hereinafter described in the following detailed description which fully discloses the disclosure, but should not be considered as placing limitations thereon.
The terms “substantially,” “generally,” “approximately,” and “about” are intended to mean that slight deviations from absolute are included within the scope of the term so modified. In this description, the directional prepositions of up, upwardly, down, downwardly, front, back, top, upper, bottom, lower, left, right and other such terms refer to the device as it is oriented and appears in the drawings and are used for convenience only; they are not intended to be limiting or to imply that the device has to be used or positioned in any particular orientation. Conventional components of the disclosure are elements that are well-known in the prior art and will not be discussed in detail for this disclosure.
An adult human typically has 32 teeth including 8 incisors, 4 canines, 8 premolars and 12 molars (including 4 wisdom teeth). These are divided into 16 teeth in the upper jaw and 16 teeth in the lower jaw. Children typically have 20 baby teeth including 10 in the upper jaw and 10 in the lower jaw. These baby teeth act as placeholders for the adult teeth.
A common technique to straighten crooked teeth is through the use of an aligner system. An aligner system uses gentle, consistent pressures to move the teeth into predetermined positions along any of the directions described above. An aligner system will typically include a series of upper aligners and lower aligners, although “single-arch” options are also available for addressing issues like small gaps, or minor crowding. The present disclosure contemplates adding active engagement features to the upper aligners, the lower aligners or both. The process generally begins with a 3D scan of the teeth and jaws, and the manufacturing and use of successive aligners or trays to apply the necessary pressure. The overall required movement for a tooth is broken down into a series of “steps” corresponding to one or more of the aligners. At each step, the user may use an aligner to achieve the required movement, and then move on to a second to achieve additional movement.
In some examples, aligner 100 includes at least one magnet to aid in aligning the teeth. In the variation shown, a pair of cylindrical-shaped magnets, 150,152 are used to cooperatively realign teeth. It will be understood that different shapes for the magnets 150,152 are possible, and that the two magnets may be of the same and/or different shapes. Additionally, the magnets 150,152 may be of the same, similar or different sizes. In the example shown, magnet 150 has a first polarity (e.g., positive) while magnet 152 has an opposite polarity (e.g., negative), such that the two magnets are attracted to one another. The polarities may be reversed. Additionally, it will be understood that variations are possible in which two magnets of a same polarity (e.g., both positive or both negative) may be used such that repelling of the two elements is used to aid in realigning teeth. In some examples, magnets 150,152 may include rare earth magnets, and may include but are not limited to: NdFeB, SmCo, AlNiCo, etc.
In
Based on the size, shape, material, location, and/or orientations of the magnets, the direction and magnitude of the force on a tooth may be chosen. In some examples, the magnets are selected with a strength to create micromovements (e.g., movement of less than ¼ mm at a time). That is to say, that in some examples, the magnets are not solely responsible for the movement of the teeth, but that they cooperate with the body of the aligner to provide such movement of a specific step. In at least some examples, the magnetic force between magnets 150,152 is equal to or less than the force of the aligner on the teeth. In some examples, the magnetic force is chosen so that it allows for micromovements but does not push the teeth beyond the boundaries of the aligner. The magnetic forces, whether attractive or repellant may vary between 15 grams and 50 grams of force depending on the position and orientation of the tooth, the desired intent of the adjustment and the expected time frame for making the adjustment. In some examples, the attractive or repellant forces may be between 50 grams and 150 grams of force. It will be understood that though a single pair of magnets 150,152 is shown in
As previously noted, pairs of magnets may have different strengths. For example, a pair of front teeth magnets may have weaker load ratings than a pair of rear teeth magnet, or vice versa. Specifically, pairs of magnets with opposite polarity may allow for the attraction load to take place—thereby moving the teeth into alignment over time.
A treatment plan to achieve these goals was created using Maestro3D Ortho Studio software to outline a series of steps using aligners in accordance with this disclosure. The treatment plan included implementation of an aligner system having gold-plated neodymium magnets (cylindrical discs of 2 mm diameter×0.5 mm height) bonded to the above-mentioned tooth, and onto the teeth to either side of it, and incorporated into each clear aligner of the steps in a juxtaposed position and in an attractive orientation. No other projections (i.e., composite attachments/buttons) were utilized. The result of the treatment plan are shown before and after 11 sequential steps of alignment.
Subsequent intraoral scans confirmed treatment progress of the correction of the position of the maxillary right central incisor.
At the time of this mid-course analysis, the patient's treatment is ongoing to complete the general alignment, but the major treatment objective of 4 mm intrusion of the maxillary right central incisor was achieved by the end of the 11th sequential set of aligners. Without being bound to any particular theory, it is believed, based on extensive clinical experience that similar malocclusion treatment scenarios with other marketed aligner systems would expect to move teeth 0.25 mm per aligner which would require 16 aligners in a best-case scenario. Intruding teeth is not a best-case tooth movement scenario for other systems. Thus, intruding a tooth 4 mm with 11 aligners using magnets as described herein is a distinguished outcome. Additionally, the movement was accomplished with no mid-course correction or refinement, regardless of the number of aligners used.
The inability of clear aligners to dictate tooth movement with high predictability, control, and precision has been demonstrated to be a performance weakness of existing clear, sequential aligner products. The anatomical features of dental anatomy require that clear aligners be augmented with the inclusion of supplemental purchase points (attachments). Traditional composite attachments used in existing marketed products have not reliably reduced the gap in efficiency between clear aligner therapy and fixed appliances because the former depends on tooth movements mirroring those expressed in the plastic antimere. The replacement of “passive” composite attachments by “active” magnetic pairs provides a feature not currently expressed in any marketed sequential aligner system. In proof-of-concept clinical testing, the implementation of magnetic pairs appears to significantly improve the clinical efficiency of clear aligner treatment.
This example provides evidence that the correctly controlled implementation of magnets, such as neodymium magnets, instead of traditional, passive, composite attachments, to augment the mechanism of action of plastic sequential aligners appears to significantly increase the efficacy and efficiency of this treatment modality. There were no notable patient safety concerns encountered (as measured by occurrences of known and potential risks of the device as constructed and implemented).
It is additionally noted and anticipated that although the device is shown in its most simple form, various components and aspects of the device may be differently shaped or slightly modified when forming the disclosure herein. As such those skilled in the art will appreciate the descriptions and depictions set forth in this disclosure or merely meant to portray examples of preferred modes within the overall scope and intent of the disclosure, and are not to be considered limiting in any manner. While all of the fundamental characteristics and features of the disclosure have been shown and described herein, with reference to particular embodiments thereof, a latitude of modification, various changes and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosure and it will be apparent that in some instances, some features of the disclosure may be employed without a corresponding use of other features without departing from the scope of the disclosure as set forth. It should also be understood that various substitutions, modifications, and variations may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the disclosure.
This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/319,810, filed Mar. 15, 2022, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63319810 | Mar 2022 | US |
