Changing the bite position in a patient with tooth hard substance loss

Question? Can we easily just raise the vertical dimension of occlusion? Background For esthetic and functional reasons, patients with visible attrition of their teeth often have the wish to compensate the loss of their tooth hard tissue (Fig. 1). Many dentists try to accommodate these concerns. In this regard, they reconstruct the original tooth shape by means of prosthetic measures such as by crowning the teeth or by applying veneers or table-tops. In doing this, the majority of dentists assume, that by restoring the original tooth shape and size, that they automatically reconstruct the original vertical dimension of occlusion. They simply equate the loss of tooth structure with a loss of bite height.