Dentistry has developed into a discipline that takes care of the problems that the village doctor, blacksmith and barber handled when extraction was the only solution to toothache. The family dentist was considered capable of taking care of most tooth-related problems, but withjncreased comprehension and integration of biological mechanisms combined with development of treatment strategies and materials, a number of specialties have been defined, initially comprising only surgery and orthodontics.Orthodontics was considered a profession that focused on the treatment of children and took advantage of the growth that occurred during treatment. Today, however, with increased life expectancy and the associated focus of combating age-related changes, the demand for rehabilitation of a degenerated dentition has increased. It has been demonstrated clearly that the balance in the chewing organ will change with time, due to general age-related changes within the bone and local degeneration (e.g., loss of teeth due to caries or periodontal disease). As a consequence, secondary malocclusions may develop or be aggravated. The re-establishment of an aesthetic and functionally satisfactory solution rarely can be achieved by replacing teeth by fixed prosthodontics and implants alone. Orthodontic treatment often is an indispensable part of rehabilitation of the degenerated dentition, though the patients and the different dental specialists may perceive the problem differently. A satisfactory and maintainable rehabilitation can be achieved only in an interdisciplinary collaboration in which all involved professionals have an understanding of each other's contribution and in which the patient agrees to invest the time and resources necessary for the chosen treatment approach. The maintenance of the treatment result likewise requires the understanding of age-related changes that also occur after rehabilitation.
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