People with dental implants seem to eat better, be healthier and enjoy life more than people who have a mouth filled with dentures.
Even people with dentures eat more healthful meals if they have just two implants, said Dr. Jocelyne S. Feine, professor of dentistry at McGill University in Montreal, who has studied the health benefits and costs of dental implants.
"Their reactions are phenomenal," Feine said. "It makes such a difference in their lives."
Although technology is making implants easier to perform and the crowns that they support better-looking, their high cost keeps them from the people who might benefit the most -- the poor elderly on fixed incomes, Feine said.
Implants -- titanium screws inserted in the jaw to provide secure support for dental crowns -- should become the standard of care in the United States and Canada, she says.
It's an uphill fight. Most insurance policies will not pay for dental implants. Medicare also does not cover any dental costs. That means patients must pay out of pocket. Although the prices of dental implants and crowns vary greatly from region to region and by procedure, they aren't inexpensive anywhere.
In some areas of the country, a single rudimentary implant and crown can run as low as $1,500. In other markets, the cost can be $5,000 or more per tooth for more complicated procedures. Those costs do not include periodontal work or bone grafts that sometimes are needed before an implant.
The high costs of implants drive patients to seek other options. If they lose a tooth, a few patients don't replace it. But adjacent teeth can drift into the gap on the gum, which can lead to other dental problems.
Sometimes insurance will partially cover the costs of a fixed bridge -- in which crowns replace the teeth on each side of the missing tooth, and a replacement tooth is suspended between the two crowns. Bridges are slightly less expensive than implants, although dentists say they are less desirable because they often need to be repaired.
"There are some people without dental plans who say they can't afford a dental restoration and simply find somebody to take all their teeth out," said Dr. Thomas Taylor, head of the department of oral rehabilitation, biomaterials and skeletal development at the University of Connecticut Health Center. "It happens all the time."
Dentures may be the least expensive option, but they fall far short of matching the chewing efficiency of natural teeth or implants, Taylor said.
