Reference Denture

What is a reference denture?

The reference denture workflow starts in the Clinic with a clinical assessment of the patient and their existing dentures followed by taking functional impressions using the existing dentures as individual trays.
Before deciding to move on with using an existing denture you must first assess if it meets the requirements for use with this treatment workflow.

In this section, we are going to examine the steps that are taken in the Dental Laboratory when they receive TRIOS scans for a reference denture. We will look at accepting the case, defining or adapting the order form and communicating with the Clinic if needed. We will take a look at the steps necessary to prepare the scans for design.

In the Model analysis stage of the reference denture workflow, you will set the restorative occlusal plane for the reference denture design as well as define anatomical landmarks on the scans which will help create an optimal denture teeth setup.

Just as with the analogue world it is important to assess the insertion direction and the subsequent undercut areas on the model. These steps allow you to set an insertion direction, evaluate and add block out wax in areas which may require it such as undercuts or sensitive areas like rugae. Upper and lower jaws do have different areas that require attention, so we will show that in the video below.

Firstly, we are going to look at the initial design setup for upper and lower full reference dentures, however later we will also look at working with single reference dentures against natural dentition because they are very different in approach.

The sub-steps of the Anatomy design stage will allow you to fine-tune the denture occlusion and refine both white and pink esthetics as well as prepare the denture design for manufacturing.

The linear Dental System workflow will first guide you through Connectors, Sculpt anatomy, Coupling mechanism as well as Pre-manufacturing steps for the upper jaw and then similar steps for the lower jaw.

A Try-in denture, from a digital perspective is the equivalent to the wax try-in in the traditional sense, and it can be used by the clinician to verify fit, form, function, esthetics, and phonetics.

Once the design of the try-in has been completed and the clinic has received it, it's time to perform an analysis of fit and function and request adjustments if needed.

In this chapter, we will look at testing the fit, communicating both minor and major change requests and also scanning the relined try-in. Let's start with testing the fit.

In this chapter we will examine 3 different scenarios:

• The lab steps if no change requests were made by the clinic
• The lab steps if minor changes were requested
• The lab steps if major changes were requested

With the final denture delivered it’s time to perform final placement with the patient. Which means that the treatment is completed.