Interdisciplinary dentofacial therapy (IDT): a comprehensive team approach

Modern dentistry, with its various disciplines, has an exciting and unmatched potential to enhance the overall quality of life for our patients. In this environment one of the greatest challenges for clinicians is to properly utilize this vast potential. It can be very difficult to consistently establish health and physiological occlusal relationships in patients with significant dental, periodontal, dentoalveolar, temporomandibular, and/or skeletal problems. This task is further complicated by ever-increasing patient and provider demands for results with optimal dentofacial aesthetics and long-term stability. Interdisciplinary Dentofacial Therapy (IDT) is a proven diagnostic and clinical pathway for consistently maximizing patient outcomes in these complicated areas. Within a climate of increasing scientific and technological advances in dentistry, today's dental professional must study continuously to stay abreast in one area, let alone in all of them. The responsibility to the patient, however, is to utilize fully the extensive options that the profession can provide. As stated above, a proven treatment philosophy for accomplishing this is called Interdisciplinary Dentofacial Therapy, or IDT. When properly performed, IDT can produce unparalleled professional satisfaction and camaraderie by reaching higher levels of patient care through optimal coordination of knowledge and skills in the various disciplines. In addition, IDT can consistently produce optimal treatment results while simultaneously producing profound practice management, time management and marketing benefits for practitioners. This paper briefly describes these benefits while defining the philosophies and hallmarks of IDT. It will also give insight into the implementation of IDT and why it will be even more necessary and valuable in the future than it is today.