Differences between Invisible Aligners and Braces

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Accepted Answer

What are the differences between Aligners and Braces?


	Appearance: Aligners is almost not visible throughout the therapy. Braces can be unsightly with the metal brackets and wires. Even with ceramic brackets, the wires are still visible and can be a hindrance for adults to commit for therapy.
	Removability: Aligners are designed to be removed when eating, drinking, and brushing. This means there is less changes required to the daily habits. However, braces require your dentist to remove. This means more adjustments required for eating. and cleaning because of the many metal pieces and wires attached to the teeth.
	Convenience: Invisible aligners allows you to remove for special event (eg. a wedding, or special night out). Aligners often only need to attend the dentist once in a few months. Braces does not offer this flexibility. Braces tend to have more minor issues such as bracket coming off or wires poking into the cheek, which require additional attendance to the dentist for adjustments, besides the essential monthly attendances.
	Compliance: Aligners require the discipline to wear the appliance 22 hours a day. If not worn for this length of time, therapy will fail to achieve the planned result. Hence, aligners are not suitable for those undisciplined adult patients and uncooperative children. Braces do not have this requirements as the appliance is fixed on the dentition. Hence this appliance is suitable for children.
	Effectiveness: With correct case selection, both aligners and braces are just as effective with today's technology. Ten years ago, aligners were often less effective compared to braces, due to lack of aligner research and development data. However, Aligner is now almost as effective as braces and the future of mainstream orthodontic will trend towards aligners. Braces will remain as a good alternative for the undisciplined patients and the special medically compromised cases.
	Cost: Tripitaka Dental at Cabramatta believes that patient should not have to choose between these two therapy pathways due to cost differences. We try our best that have the fee nearly similar. In general, most practices would charge more for aligners compared to braces due to the cost difference for the products.