Dental monitoring: how artificial intelligence is taking orthodontics to the next level

Dental monitoring is becoming the most innovative orthodontic treatment in the last 10 years. Using artificial intelligence, patients can effectively use their smartphone to monitor their treatment progress with their orthodontists. Dr Usman Qureshi, an orthodontist from Origin Orthodontics in London, explains how the introduction of dental monitoring is making treatment more efficient and effective for both his practice and patients.

How exactly does dental monitoring work?

Dental monitoring (DM) is a remote monitoring application that works from your smartphone. DM is a revolutionary new technology that involves patients using their smartphone in conjunction with an app to capture a series of clinical images from home to allow us to monitor the progress of their aligner treatment with greater accuracy.

Patients submit their images weekly from the comfort of their home which allows us to gauge how effectively their aligner treatment is progressing - allowing us to tailor aligner treatments to each patient’s needs. It combines artificial intelligence technology to gauge the accuracy in conjunction with clinician review.

How do patients get set up with this treatment?

Patients suitable for Invisalign clear aligner treatment are offered this enhanced technology as a standard in all of our clinics. As one of the first providers of this technology in the UK, we have monitored several hundred scans since being an early adopter of this technique in early 2018.

What are the advantages of dental monitoring?

From the clinic’s perspective

The main advantage we have found has been an improvement in the overall quality of treatment we can provide to our patients, as we can review the accuracy of aligner movements to the tenth of a millimetre. Unlike other clinicians, we can review our patients on a weekly basis as opposed to every 2-3 months. This allows us to identify and tailor the aligners to each patient, as some stages of treatment can progress faster than others. It also allows us to keep a careful eye out for clinical problems that may occur like the detachment of small Invisalign attachments or oral hygiene problems to ensure the risks of gum problems during treatment are minimised.

From the patient’s perspective

You can rest assured that we are checking in on your treatment weekly - which helps us to provide feedback on your treatment. There is also as an instant messaging portal to make direct contact with us too. In addition, it helps to reduce the number of appointments required in the clinic which greatly minimises disruption to a patient’s busy work schedule, and for children, it helps to reduce time out of schools. The other advantage is that as the accuracy and efficiency of our Invisalign treatment improve, our patients seem to be completing their treatments sooner as the overall duration of treatment time is reduced.
 

What treatments does dental monitoring work with?

We are currently using photo monitoring alongside Invisalign treatments. Right now, we are looking to extend this technology into the management of all our patients when they complete their active treatment and enter the retention phase of treatment.

Retention is the phase of treatment immediately after orthodontic treatment when there is a tendency for teeth to want to return to their original position. At our clinic, we always provide fixed and removable retainers to prevent this unwanted change.

With DM, we would be able to increase the accuracy, efficiency and frequency of checks with our retention patients for all systems, whether they have had aligners or lingual braces. We hope to launch this service in 2020.

Dr Usman Qureshi is a specialist orthodontist who practices at Origin Orthodontics in London. If you are interested in remote dental monitoring treatment, or you simply want to find out more, you can make a consultation with him via his Top Doctor’s profile to discuss this further.