1s November 2013: Natural Vs Complete denture occlusion

I decided to compare more specific dental restorations and the natural teeth. The first being dentures. 

One online powerpoint website was extremely helpful and introduced many new ideas and sub headings that were relevant to my EPQ. The information directly compared dentures (in particular their occlusal surface) and the natural occlusal surface of teeth. 

It included:

-non vertical forces 

-bilateral balance 

-Retention, Stability and support etc etc. 

my notes taken from the website (left)

A lot of theory on physics cropped up which was difficult to understand as the theories and equations were foreign to me. So I was thinking of asking a physics teacher in college to explain it in a simpler form. 

I further researched into the information from this website, so my research could be more detailed. Surprisingly I found some useful articles from the BDJ (British Dental Journal) which I struggled with earlier on, however once again the language used in these papers were difficult to understand. I also went on a mexican dental care website which gave similar information but this website also gave an equation known as Stefan's law. This law was pretty comprehensive and shows the force necessary to pull the plates apart (I think the plates are referring to the gum and the surface of the denture).

Most of these sources explained the physical mechanisms of complete denture retention (retention is the resistance of a denture to resist vertical movement away from the dentures). The factors involved in retention are covered in the sources which include surface tension, adhesion, cohesion, atmospheric pressure etc. These are factors I would like to further explore as it would give depth to my essay.

29th October 2013: Writing a literature Review
In the lesson, we were told we had to do a literature review at the end of our dissertation. From my understanding a literature review is a single page comparing and contrasting research from different sources relevant to one part of your essay. Its a simple evaluation of these sources whilst awarding credibility to the useful sources.
A literature Review is another brand new skill that I have learnt to do, nearer the end of my project I will practise this skill to produce my own literature review.

In the class we watched a video about what a literature review was and what was not. From this we took notes (below).

26th October 2013: Research into Restorative dentistry

Following my plan to change my EPQ title, I started to research firstly about dental restorations and the different types that are available currently in dentistry. For this I decided to research on wikipedia. 

I then attempted to research 'how good dental restorations are compared to teeth' (typed this in google) and found a couple of websites. Although the information was reliable and informative, I had a hard time relating it back to my title. Most of the information that I found on these websites discussed the advantages and disadvantages of restorative techniques including aspects such as durability, resistance to wear, resistance to fracture etc. This information is partly helpful but it doesn't compare the natural teeth with dental restorations. Nonetheless I decided to use some of the information and maybe do some further research about the same aspects of the natural teeth, e.g. their resistance to fracture/wear etc, and indirectly compare the two.  

The websites that I used to collect this information are the screen captures below.

http://www.quackwatch.com/03HealthPromotion/dentalmaterials.html

http://www.ada.org/sections/publicResources/pdfs/dental_fillings_facts_full.pdf

Following this, I went on BDJ (British Dental Journal) and typed in dental restorations in the search bar of the publications. Reading through the titles, I picked out a couple of titles which seemed relevant to my EPQ (below). I made notes on the relevant information and using yellow sticky pads briefly evaluated the source on its usefulness.

 This publication is Research

This publication is a Review 

(both publications are evaluated using yellow sticky pads (right))

Overall the Sources that I researched was fairly useful, however they lacked depth and wasn't directly related to my title (validity issues). However it has given me a starting point to the possible sub sections to research and for further research I will look into specific restorations compared to the natural teeth e.g. comparing dentures to the natural teeth.

22nd October 2013

Research Fail, Changing of Title, Deadline Extension

I have tried to find further research into the importance of teeth, however most of the information is monotonous and repetitive and unfortunately I can't seem to extend my project further. Following my research on the 17th October as well as a chat with my two EPQ teachers I have decided to extend my EPQ title to cover the level of similarity between dental restorations and the natural tooth. I feel like this is an appropriate change because it means I can explore another aspect of dentistry which can relate back to my original title. 

My EPQ teachers were worried that my original title 'How important are our natural teeth and could we develop to live without them' was going to be a simple yes/no answer. I was also skeptical of my title because my research had come to a halt so I decided this was the ideal choice. Extending my title also means that I will be able to back up my yes/no decision at the end with the research about dental restorations and if they can perfectly replace our natural teeth. 

Following my decision to change my EPQ title, I have edited my project verification form. (below)

This also means that I will have to carry out more research, including primary research, therefore I have decided to push my deadline further to April, so that I will have more time to adjust to the changes I have made, 

My Target this week is to start researching about the similarity between dental restorations and the natural teeth, so that I can begin to generate the different sub headings for my essay.