Instagram, a photo and video social networking site, is gaining popularity in the dental world and it is easy to see why this is so. Instagram’s potential to share information in an engaging way allows dental professionals to share clinical work and provides a unique way of learning. Advertising on Instagram has blossomed. Some of this is for self-promotional reasons, for practice building, or for marketing of new techniques and products by manufacturers. One ought to be cautious about the implications of some patients’ quest for ‘dental perfection’. That is especially the case when destructive dentistry is being undertaken by dentists trying to replicate what they have seen on Instagram in potentially much more challenging patients. Some of those demanding patients request very ambitious treatments with sometimes hugely unrealistic expectations. Arguably, Instagram could be the new major trend in dentistry.

This article reviews some of the main tenets of different occlusal philosophies involved in ‘full mouth rehabilitation’ and evolved since the late 19th century. This review is not intended as a comprehensive historical review of all the people who wrote, researched, or taught on the topic, and it is certainly not intended to disparage their well-meaning contributions. It is intended to highlight some of the changes that occurred in relation to full mouth rehabilitation occlusal concepts along with the dates when they were articulated.

This article reviews various full mouth rehabilitation occlusal concepts along with their main beliefs and controversies. Many of those occlusal teachings were well-meant at the time they were introduced. However, closer examination reveals that many of them involved serious destruction of sound tooth tissue – without delivering many of their purported benefits. The biologic and structural disadvantages of ‘subtractive’ dental procedures, which were, and still are, undertaken to provide traditional full mouth rehabilitation are discussed. Those approaches are contrasted with the proven advantages of minimally destructive additive techniques, which can solve frequently encountered clinical problems previously deemed to require traditional ‘full mouth rehabilitations’. Pragmatic clinical cases are used to illustrate how to solve common clinical problems by using minimally destructive means, without causing structural damage to residual sound tooth tissue.

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