Dental Lab Products-2012-03-01

01 Do you think of Captek crowns and bridges as PFM restorations, or do they belong to a category all to themselves?

It’s not news that everybody wants to work in a safe environment, one that will allow them to stay healthy and continue doing their thing well on a day-to-day basis. What is new is the reality that even the best-laid plans to retire at a young age may be going by the wayside with the way the economy has changed most peoples’ lives in recent years. Now more and more people are working to an older age and others are making plans to extend their careers beyond what they had originally intended.

The Lab Gnathodontics Ltd. is a full service dental lab located in Lakewood, Colo. with about 60 employees. The lab specializes in complex combination cases, implants and cosmetic work.  The Product

A Web-based dental laboratory and supply-chain management software, SoundTrack is a suite of innovative tools designed to help labs drive revenue growth, decrease costs and strengthen customer loyalty. Designed to blend seamlessly with emerging dental technologies, labs can manage hundreds of concurrent cases online from anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

The fabrication of base alloy frameworks are state of the art, but often they receive a “bad reputation” with claims of much of the population suffering from toxic or allergic reactions due to dental metallic materials. It’s not to say that such reactions never occur, but when one compares the number of reported cases to the total number of units manufactured for patients, the ratio is very minimal. The risk of an allergy to food, such as strawberries or nuts, is much greater than the risk of having a reaction against a dental alloy compound. 

Load the platform with 30 dies, initiate the job and within 15 minutes, the automatic scan and design application produces final coping designs. Its 140 mm x 140 mm x 140 mm scan volume provides access for large fully articulated models.

There are enough children born with congenitally missing laterals to warrant discussion about how to solve the problem of social embarrassment for them even if it’s just a temporary solution. Later, when the patient is an adult, he or she can decide to move forward with a permanent answer, be it implants or bridgework, whatever resolution best suits him or her.

During my travels across the country I come in contact with many removables laboratories feeling a disconnect between themselves and how they will fit into and service the developing technologies used in dental practices. My advice is to become a student of the game and look for opportunities that accommodate how deep you want to get involved. 

Back pain is the last thing anyone working at a lab bench wants to put up with every day. That’s why ceramist Shawn Holmes of Becker Dental Laboratory in Herculaneum, Mo., looked into exercises and new seating in an effort to combat his lower back pain. What he found was a two-for-one solution in stability balls. Now that he has swapped his traditional dental lab chairs for these stability “exercise” balls, Holmes’ back pain has gone away and he’s feeling better and stronger while at work.