Patent Application
20120183924
The present invention generally relates to a prosthetic dental device, and more particularly to a bridge having clasping arms that are provided with clasping structure.
When natural teeth are damaged, chewing capability is affected, which in turn leads to poor digestion performance of intestines and stomach. A denture or partial denture is often used, by being mounted to the natural teeth, for the purposes of protection and enhanced capability of resisting forces acting thereon, so as to provide the damaged natural teeth with sufficient mechanical strength for chewing.
When the gum and alveolar bone around the natural teeth is severely damaged, the denture, even properly mounted, is not capable of supporting the pressure applied thereto in chewing food. A common solution is to arrange a bridge on at least one side of a prosthetic tooth. The bridge has clasping arms that clasp the adjacent teeth, which serve as abutment, to improve the strength of the prosthetic tool to support force applied thereto.
Further, to make cleaning operations of the dentures simple, a removable prosthetic dental device that is composed of internal and external crowns is available. Such a prosthetic dental device comprises clasping arms of bridge on both sides thereof. Such a prosthetic dental device restores the chewing capability of a dental patient and allows for removal from the oral cavity for cleaning.
However, such a prosthetic dental device suffers instability of mounting, for the internal and external crowns are fixed to each other through frictional force. If the frictional force is insufficient, the external crown gets easy detachment in chewing food, especially sticky foodstuffs. On the other hand, when the frictional force gets excessively large, it would makes the external crown sticking to the internal crown and hard or even impossible to remove.
Further, the positioning angle between adjacent teeth is often very precise. Any deviation in mounting position of the denture may cause uncomfortableness and even lead to non-uniform distribution of force applied to the denture in chewing food, eventually damaging the denture.
In view of the above discussed problems, the present invention provides a prosthetic tooth having a bridge clasping arm and a clasping structure. The prosthetic tooth comprises a prosthetic tooth and at least one bridge clasping arm. The bridge clasping arm is connected to one side of the prosthetic tooth and comprises a first clasping portion and a second clasping portion is provided on an adjacent tooth, which corresponds to the bridge clasping arm. When the bridge clasping arm is positioned on the adjacent tooth, the first clasping portion and the second clasping portion engage each other for clasping.
An objective of the present invention is to ensure more reliable connection of the prosthetic tooth that comprises a bridge clasping arm and provides the advantages of easy mounting and removal.
The present inventions uses the bridge clasping arm for connection with an adjacent tooth in order to improve the capability of the prosthetic tooth for bearing forces acting thereon. Further, the present invention allows for easy removal for cleaning thereby facilitating the cleaning and caring of the prosthetic tooth. To mount the present invention, it can be directly set on a proper location and a user does not need to apply personal perception to identify if the device is properly mounted at a correct location. The efficient mounting to a proper location can be achieved to ensure protection and stabilization of the prosthetic tooth.
The foregoing objectives and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.
Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.
The following descriptions are exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
Referring to
Referring to
When the prosthetic tooth 10 is set in a desired position, the first clasping portion 21 of the bridge clasping arm 20 engages the second clasping portion 30 so as to securely fix the prosthetic tooth 10 between adjacent teeth. Further, the bridge clasping arm 20 is made resilient, allowing outward deflection, as shown in
Further, referring to
Further, as shown in
Further, as shown in
The second clasping portion 30 is formed on an internal crown T2 and is attached to the adjacent tooth T1 by means of the internal crown T2. Referring to
Using internal and external crowns that are coupleable with each other is one of the known ways of the conventional prosthetic dental device tooth. As shown in
Further, there may be two bridge clasping arms 20 respectively arranged at two sides of the prosthetic tooth 10, so as to ensure uniform distribution of force applied to both sides of the prosthetic tooth 10 and thus improve the capability of the prosthetic tooth for bearing forces acting thereon. It is apparent that, as mentioned previously, the prosthetic tooth 10 can be modified to comprise a number of prosthetic teeth connected to each other and a bridge clasping arm 20 is arranged at each of the two side teeth. This is considered within the scope of protection sought by the present invention.
The present invention offers such an advantage of easy mounting and removal and adopts a bridge clasping arm 20 to improve the capability of bearing force acting thereon. A user may easily remove the prosthetic device for cleaning and re-mounted again all by himself and herself, showing excellent convenience.
It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.
While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
