Digital Scans Changed the Records. They Didn't Change the Occlusion.

Intraoral scanning has been one of the genuine advances in restorative and appliance dentistry. It removes an entire category of problems: impression distortion, voids, pulls, dimensional change in transit, and errors introduced when a model is poured.

If you have a quality scanner, a digital scan is now the preferred way to capture the arches.

But here's the trap worth naming. A scan captures the teeth. It says nothing about the relationship between the jaws, and nothing about where you want the mandible positioned for therapy.

Scanning both arches gives you two beautifully accurate models — floating in space, with no prescribed relationship to one another. If you don't supply that relationship, someone else decides it for you. Usually that means the case is articulated in centric occlusion and opened arbitrarily, with the posterior-contact consequences we see at delivery.

So the discipline is the same as it always was. A digital case still needs an accurate interarch record. Scanning improves the quality of the record. It does not replace the occlusal decision behind it.

If you're scanning, take a digital construction bite and send it with the model — the same way an impression and a bite registration have always traveled together. Not comfortable capturing it digitally yet? We'll send you a step-by-step guide.

The full workflow is in our Talon Splint Practice Building Bulletin.

Written by Dr. Rob Veis, DDS. President of SML