Occlusion

20 Questions

In the previous articles in this series there has been an underlying theme about occlusion, although this has not been considered in the detail that this important subject deserves. I think it is fair to say that failure to attend to occlusal matters significantly reduces the life expectancy of the majority of restorations from crowns, through dentures to implants.

I have therefore set you 20 questions, all of which have relevance to occlusion. Do try to answer them. If you are not sure pass on to the next question. The answers will be provided in a later article, and more importantly the relevance of those answers to occlusion explained in depth.

Do please try to answer these questions rather than just going to the answers. You can learn much from a wrong answer that has been correcterd.

1. What do you understand by the term centric occlusion?
2. What do you understand by the term centric relation?
3. What do you understand by the term centric?
4. What does a facebow record?
5. What is Meckel’s cartilage and what develops from it?
6. What are the so called muscles of mastication and what is their motor nerve supply?
7. What other muscles are supplied by the same motor nerve as in 6 above?
8. What type of joint is the TMJ?
9. Which ligaments support the TMJ?
10. What is the average condylar angle?
11. What is a ‘Golgi’ body?
12. What is ‘oxygen debt’?
13. What is incisal guidance?
14. What is the ‘BULL’ rule?
15. Which are the so-called ‘functional cusps’?
16. What is the Curve of Monson?
17. Define canine guidance.
18. Does ‘stress’ cause the pain associated with TMJ dysfunction syndrome?
19. What, in millimetres is the normal range of the freeway space when measured anteriorly?
20. What is ‘Dawson’s manouvre’?