Facts and Fallacies About Occlusal Philosophies for Full Mouth Rehabilitation

This article reviews various full mouth rehabilitation occlusal concepts along with their main beliefs and controversies. Many of those occlusal teachings were well-meant at the time they were introduced. However, closer examination reveals that many of them involved serious destruction of sound tooth tissue - without delivering many of their purported benefits.The biologic and structural disadvantages of 'subtractive' dental procedures, which were, and still are, undertaken to provide traditional full mouth rehabilitation are discussed. Those approaches are contrasted with the proven advantages of minimally destructive additive techniques, which can solve frequently encountered clinical problems previously deemed to require traditional 'full mouth rehabilitations'. Pragmatic clinical cases are used to illustrate how to solve common clinical problems by using minimally destructive means, without causing structural damage to residual sound tooth tissue.