ESTABLISHING STABILITY IN ATROPHIED MANDIBULAR RIDGE WITH A SIMPLIFIED NEUTRAL ZONE APPROACH-A CASE REPORT

Alveolar ridge resorption is a chronic, progressive, irreversible, and cumulative multifactorial and biomechanical disease which leads to decreased sulcular depth, reduced vertical dimension and reduced lower facial height. Some neurological, hormonal, and metabolic disorders can often lead to difficulties in impression-making, mastication, and swallowing, which in turn leads to loss of retention, stability and adaptability of complete dentures. Thus residual ridge resorption becomes a challenging scenario for a dentist during fabrication of complete dentures. The neutral zone concept can often be a technique used to overcome these challenges. It can be an effective way to obtain denture stability in a highly atrophic ridge. This technique can be a valuable one by constructing a denture that is shaped by muscle function and in harmony with the surrounding oral structures. This technique is rarely used because of the extra clinical step involved and the complexity of the technique. This clinical report describes a neutral zone technique and compares the function, retention and stability of complete dentures between the conventional denture technique and the neutral zone technique.