What Is Malocclusion? Signs, Symptoms, and Why Treatment Matters

I you have missing teeth, overcrowding, a history of orthodontic treatment, excessive overbite or over-jet, wearing of your teeth’s surfaces ( occlusal wear), periodontal disease, then you might have Malocclusion. Those mentioned conditions will cause misalignment of your teeth, and as the result, it will cause unnecessary trauma to your dentition and TMJ.

Left untreated, malocclusion can cause several health problems. Apart from causing dental problems such as decayed teeth, losing teeth or developing gum disease, malocclusion can affect how you chew food or how you speak. It can also damage your tooth enamel or cause problems with your jaw.

One of the well-established occlusal diseases (masticatory dysfunction) is dental wear. It is one of the common destructive dental disorders due to several etiological factors. Usually, this disease is progressive without intervention, and the eventual outcome is tooth loss, occlusal disease, is described as a condition that follows: the process resulting in the noticeable loss of the occluding surfaces of the teeth. It is described as a “deformation or disturbance of function of any structures within the masticatory system that are in disequilibrium with a harmonious interrelationship between the TMJs, the masticatory musculature, and the occluding surfaces of the teeth.

Frequently, the occlusal disease remains undiagnosed until severe damage becomes esthetically and functionally discomforting for the patient. It is one of the contributing factors in tooth loss. Treatment planning can be preventive (i.e., controlling the erosive factor), restorative, or a combination. To describe an occlusal treatment as a successful one, it should provide a comfortable and stable TMJ position and centric relation; the anterior teeth must be in harmony with the envelope of function without premature contacts in posterior teeth. The position that allows for interference-free contact is the centric relation; this position is an important factor in treatment planning for dental wear, and similarly, anterior guidance is an important factor to be considered.