Bar overdentures are another form of removable teeth on dental implants. In the last blog we talked about locator over dentures. This was when the denture was snapped on to single dental implant. The main advantage of a bar over denture in comparison with a locator overdenture is stability. When we join the individual implants to one another in the form of a bar we can get stability for our denture from the side walls of the bar. The bar also reduces the forces applied to the implants because they now will take on the load together rather than individually. As a result the bar will start to absorb more of the forces than the tissues. For this reason a lot of the bulk associated with dentures can now be reduced. This is especially beneficial when dealing with patients that have extreme bone loss, as their tissues are not sufficient to support the denture adequately.
There are many styles of bar over dentures. Each style has advantages based on the patients individual needs and desires. I find bar over dentures to be very low maintenance, and predictable. The fact that the denture that fits on the bar is removable, makes it even easier to keep clean and maintain. Overall we have had great success with bar over dentures at our office.
