Attachment technique: a partial denture without visible clasps

A simple partial denture holds with metal clasps that grip around the remaining teeth. They are visible above all in the upper jaw and when laughing. An attachment replaces that clasp with a connection that sits inside the prosthesis itself and cannot be seen from outside.

How it works

The supporting teeth are crowned. Part of the connection is worked into those crowns, the counterpart sits in the removable denture. When it is put in, the two parts slide into each other like a tongue and groove and lock – audibly in some designs.

The fixed and the removable part therefore belong together: one is of no use without the other. It can only be made in a laboratory, with a high precision of fit.

The difference from the telescopic denture

Both manage without visible clasps. The Telescopic denture holds by the friction of two crowns pushed into each other; an attachment holds by a connecting element worked into it. In practice that means:

• telescopes are easier to extend if an abutment tooth is lost later.
• attachments are built more delicately and need less room.
• both belong to the more elaborate prostheses and are made in the laboratory.

What it requires

Load-bearing abutment teeth with a healthy periodontium, well distributed in the jaw. With untreated periodontitis this is the wrong restoration – the abutments have to withstand the load permanently. And the teeth have to be crowned, and therefore ground down.

Costs and care

The fixed allowance is measured by the findings and corresponds to that of a clasp denture. Everything beyond it – the crowns, the attachments, the laboratory work – you carry yourself; the own share is correspondingly high.

The critical point is the margin of the crowns: that is where decay forms if it is not cleaned thoroughly every day. The removable part is cleaned outside the mouth like every denture – how that is done is described under Cleaning a denture.