Oral Anatomy Related to Impression Making for Complete Dentures

Abstract

Making an impression of the edentulous maxillary and mandibular residual alveolar ridge is an important part of fabricating removable complete dentures, because the proper functioning of the dentures is partially dependent on the volume and shape of the residual alveolar ridges and the surrounding soft tissues, in particular the muscles. Before an impression is made, an insight into the anatomy of the edentulous maxilla and mandible as well as of the soft oral tissues is essential. A S-phase approach for impression making has been introduced, containing guidelines for consecutively making the preliminary impressions, fabricating the preliminary casts and the individual impression trays, making the individual impressions, and fabricating the master casts. ln each phase, the concern is to achieve the best possible stability of the removable complete dentures. Adequate stability can only be achieved by developing the functional borders of the dentures adequately.