Lower Teeth (lower + tooth)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Recording dental caries in archaeological human remains

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
Simon Hillson
Abstract Dental caries is an important condition to record in archaeological collections, but the way in which recording is carried out has a large effect on the way in which the results can be interpreted. In living populations, dental caries is a disease that shows a strong relationship with age. Both the nature of carious lesions and their frequency change with successive age groups from childhood to elderly adulthood. There is also a progression in the particular teeth in the dentition which are most commonly affected and, in general, the molars and premolars are involved much more frequently than the canines and incisors. Lower teeth are usually affected more than upper, although the condition usually involves the right and left sides fairly equally. In the high tooth wear rate populations represented by many archaeological and museum collections, there is a complex relationship between the form of lesions and the state of wear, which adds yet another range of factors to the changing pattern of caries with increasing age. In the same populations, chipping, fracture and anomalous abrasion of teeth are also common, and these contribute similarly to the distribution and forms of carious lesion observed. Amongst the living, the pattern of ante-mortem tooth loss is important in understanding caries and, in archaeological material, there is also the complicating factor of post-mortem tooth loss. Finally, there is the question of diagnosis. There are diagnostic problems even in epidemiological studies of living patients and, for archaeological specimens, diagenetic change and the variable preservation of different parts of the dentition add further complications. For all these reasons, it is difficult to define any one general index of dental caries to represent the complete dentition of each individual, which would be universally suitable for studying a full range of collections from archaeological sites or museums. Variation in the nature of collections, their preservation, tooth wear, and ante-mortem and post-mortem tooth loss mean that when such a general index appears to differ between sites, there could be many other reasons for this, in addition to any genuine differences in caries incidence and pattern that might have been present. It is suggested here that the best approach is instead to make comparisons separately for each tooth type, age group, sex, lesion type and potential lesion site on the tooth. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Cast titanium overlay denture for a geriatric patient with a reduced vertical dimension

GERODONTOLOGY, Issue 4 2005
Satyabodh Guttal
An older patient reporting to the dental surgery for his/her dental treatment is becoming a common occurrence. Improved oral hygiene has meant that teeth are retained for a longer time, along with the potential problems of attrition, decreased vertical dimension, temporomandibular joint discomfort/strain, and poor aesthetics. The case in question is that of a 65-year-old male patient who had severe attrition in the lower arch, temporomandibular joint pain and reduced vertical dimension. The maxillary arch had previously been restored with a fixed partial prosthesis. For restoration of the lower teeth, a removable cast titanium overlay denture was fabricated incorporating an increased vertical dimension. Porcelain facings were placed to restore the aesthetics of the anterior teeth. The titanium was cast in a semi-automatic electric arc, pressure type casting machine. A titanium overlay denture with porcelain facing on the anterior teeth may provide a means of restoring a patient's concerns regarding aesthetics and function. [source]


Factors related to the resting tongue position among partially and completely edentulous subjects

JOURNAL OF ORAL REHABILITATION, Issue 6 2005
E. KOTSIOMITI
summary, The prevalence of abnormal (retracted) position of the tongue at rest was examined in subjects with varying number of natural lower teeth. The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between tongue retraction and state of dentition and to identify potentially related parameters. The resting tongue positions were recorded in subjects partially edentulous in the lower jaw (n = 164) and compared with those met in dentate (n = 57) and completely edentulous participants (n = 84). Potentially related parameters, such as age, sex, duration of edentulism, palate vault and signs of temporomandibular disorders were also recorded. Tongue retraction was observed in a small percentage (12·3%) of the dentate, almost half (45·7%) of the partially edentulous and in the majority (67·8%) of the completely edentulous participants. The number of natural lower teeth correlated with the resting tongue position in the partially edentulous group. The tongue position at rest was also found weakly related to signs of temporomandibular disorders in the dentate group and to the sex and duration of edentulism in the partially edentulous group. It was concluded that the abnormal positioning of the resting tongue is increasingly observed with decreasing number of natural teeth, possibly in accordance with the morphological and functional alterations that result from teeth loss. The presence of a retracted tongue affects the complete denture construction; however, its effect on denture function remains questionable. [source]


Occlusal phase of gum-chewing strokes

JOURNAL OF ORAL REHABILITATION, Issue 10 2003
H. Hayasaki
summary, The occlusal phase of chewing is especially interesting because food particles are being pulverized in this phase. For efficient chewing the upper and lower teeth must come together in a congruent fashion with less variation than in other phases. To examine this expectation the chewing motions of 28 women were recorded optoelectrically, and their frontal and sagittal angles of the closing and following opening strokes were measured at 3·0 mm (3-D linear distance) of opening. Closing strokes were more stable than opening strokes. The frontal angle was correlated with the sagittal angle during closing. The opening and closing sagittal angles were moderately correlated, and the opening and closing frontal angles were negatively correlated at the intersubject level. No direct association was found between the closing strokes and following opening strokes at the intra-subject level. These results suggest that closing strokes are more stable than opening strokes, resulting in efficient mastication. [source]


Teucrium ramaswamii sp. nov. (Lamiaceae) from India

NORDIC JOURNAL OF BOTANY, Issue 2 2009
M. B. Viswanathan
A new species of Lamiaceae, Teucrium ramaswamii M. B. Viswan. & U. Manik. is described from the Kalakkad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) in the Agastyamalai hills of the southwestern Ghats in peninsular India. It is allied to T. tomentosum Heyne ex Benth. but differs by stem, leaves and inflorescence being glandular strigose; leaves being deltoid,ovate, crenate,dentate or doubly crenate,dentate at margin, subcoriaceous, sparsely strigose above, densely strigose beneath; bracts being oblong,deltoid, ca 9.4×2.6 mm; calyx with uppermost teeth being lanceolate, ca 2.8×1.9 mm, lateral teeth being broadly triangular, lower teeth being oblong,lanceolate; corolla being glandular strigose outside below lateral lobes and ovary being glandular strigose. Using the IUCN criteria, conservation status of the species is assigned as Critically Endangered based on the field data (2000,2002). Life history studies, population ecology, genome resource banking and wild population management are recommended for conserving this species. [source]


Dental caries in a Portuguese identified skeletal sample from the late 19th and early 20th centuries

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Sofia N. Wasterlain
Abstract Dental caries was investigated in 600 adult dentitions belonging to the identified osteological collections of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Coimbra, Portugal (late 19th/early 20th centuries). The main advantage of this sample compared to an archaeological source is the presence of known demographic parameters such as age, sex, and occupation. The aim of this study is to investigate the issues involved in comparing caries data derived from archaeological death assemblages with statistics compiled from clinical studies of the living. When only the upper dentition was considered, higher rates were observed in females than in males. No differences were found between sexes for lower teeth. In both sexes, both the percentage of carious teeth and the severity of lesions were found to increase with age, demonstrating that caries activity continued throughout life. The slight decrease observed for the age group 70,79 years is probably due to the increased antemortem tooth loss in the elderly. Caries was most common at contact areas (32.9%) and rarest at smooth crown surfaces (6.5%). Root surface caries was graphed in relation to the exposure of roots, and it was confirmed that the degree of root exposure was not strongly related to the frequency of carious lesions on the exposed root surface, although both increased with age. Molars were attacked more frequently by caries as a whole than premolars, canines or incisors. The results are similar to studies of recent living populations with a limited access to professional dental care. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]