Every day there are incredible discoveries and inventions that help to drive forward technology. These changes seem to come faster with every passing year, affecting how we communicate, how we live, and even how we receive treatment. Dental technology has seen new innovations that provide new tools for educating our dentists, viewing the hidden structures of our mouths, and even for performing oral hygiene. In this article, we’re going to reveal one unexpected technology that’s touching on every area of dental care.

The video entertainment industry produces some of the most important medical technology

How The Virtual World Touches On The Physical

The virtual world integrating with the physical has been a long-standing staple of science fiction, and every day it’s becoming more of a reality. Known as Augmented Reality, the ability to overlay the real world in the digital realm got its most visible start in certain popular mobile apps. This technology has seen amazing innovation in the medical industry, including dental care. Below we’ll touch on some of the ways that it’s changed the way our teeth are cared for.

• Training Dentists – AR has become a common element in medical and dental training. The ability to turn virtual environments into a place to practice realistic procedures means dentists enter the field with more ‘hands-on’ experience than ever before.
• Teaching Good Dental Habits – Educating our children in proper dental care practices is an essential part of ensuring long term dental health. Interactive video games have begun being leveraging the capabilities of gaming consoles such as the Xbox Kinect to track movement. The video games track the child’s brushing habits and techniques to ensure that they’re doing them properly.
• Augmented Procedures – In addition to educating both patients and doctors in dental care, augmented reality has found its way into the clinic. Special systems make it possible for computers to overlay the patient with informative highlights and information. This overlay can happen on a video monitor, a special pair of glasses, and other systems.

This kind of technological integration hints at a future where new techniques and systems will lead to ever-improving dental care. As new technologies come to light new opportunities, appear to improve the performance of dentists and the patient experience in the clinic.

Dentistry continues to find new techniques and procedures as technology advances

A Future Of Amazing Dentistry Lay Ahead

While it definitely has a serious impact, Augmented Reality doesn’t stand alone among technologies that affected dental care. One of the freshest technologies to hit the field is smart toothbrushes, which use apps to track dental health practices and suggest improvements. 3D printing helps to provide dental restorations faster and cheaper than ever. In addition to augmented reality, we’re starting to see robotics technology advance to the point where they will assist dentists in the same way that they aid in certain medical surgeries. This is just the beginning of what technological innovations have to offer dentistry in the future.