Cover and holdback element for permitting disturbance-free dental operations to be performed on teeth
AssigneeIvoclar Vivadent AG
InventorDomonkos Horvath
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cover and holdback element for permitting disturbance-free dental operations to be performed on a patient's teeth includes an expandable sheet operable to cover at least a portion of the mouth volume of a patient and an intra-oral spanner and an extra-oral spanner. The sheet is turned around the at least one of the spanners and is displaceable relative thereto.
Claims20
A cover and holdback element for permitting disturbance-free dental operations to be performed in a patient's mouth, in particular, on a patient's teeth, comprising:
- an expandable sheet 10 operable to cover at least a portion of the mouth volume of a patient;
- at least one elastic tensioning element 30, 40 in the form of at least one of an arrangement of an intra-oral spanner 30 and an extra-oral spanner 40, the sheet 10 having at least one opening 18 and being turned around the at least one tensioning element 30, 40 and being displaceable relative thereto.
A process for fabricating a cover and holdback element for permitting disturbance-free dental operations to be performed in a patient's mouth, in particular on a patient's teeth, the process comprising:
- providing an expandable sheet 10 operable to cover at least a portion of the mouth volume of a patient, the expandable sheet 10 including at least one opening 18;
- and
- inserting at least an extra-oral spanner through said at least one opening into said expandable sheet ans positioning it in the vicinity of said opening 18, and thereafter passing a portion of the expandable sheet 10 that is spaced from the opening 18 through the extra-oral spanner 40 and the opening 18, whereby a bag-shaped configuration is formed.
A process for fabricating a cover and holdback element for permitting disturbance-free dental operations to be performed in a patient's mouth, in particular on a patient's teeth, the process comprising:
- providing an expandable sheet 10 that is a selected one of a substantially ball-shaped expandable sheet and a substantially tube-shaped expandable sheet operable to cover at least a portion of the mouth volume of a patient, the expandable sheet 10 including a first opening and a second opening oppositely disposed to the first opening;
- and
- turning the expandable sheet 10 from the inside outwardly around respective tensioning elements 30, 40 such that respective turned around portions of the expandable sheet 10 are radially cinched between the tensioning elements.
A method for deploying a cover and holdback element, the process comprising:
- providing a sheet 10 that extends over an intra-oral spanner 30 and an extra-oral spanner 40;
- and
- turning the expandable sheet 10 around said extra-oral spanner 40, wherein the sheet is displaceable relative to at least the extra-oral spanner 40 and wherein the sheet, upon the application thereto of a pull force such as occurs upon the deployment of the sheet in the mouth of a patient, being, at the least, displaced toward one side relative the extra-oral spanner 40, and, especially, being deformed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.