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3D print techniques in dentistry have started to become an everyday part of clinical practice. The aim of our study was 3D objectification of stereolithography system (SLA) printed models, including surface analysis. Our investigated group consisted of 50 scans of upper dental arches of medical students obtained by 3Shape TRIOS 3 ® in the form of standard template library (STL) files. SLA 3D printer-built layers of an upper dental arch model were made by using liquid polymer hardened by laser beam (blue 405 nm laser). Each 3D SLA model was scanned from 56 positions and a section to check the precision of reconstruction. The model surface was evaluated with a profilometer, scanning electron microscope, and stereomicroscope. Differences between the intraoral scanned digital STL models and 3D SLA prints were very small, namely in hundredths of mm, and in many cases, they were also significant at lower levels. Stereolithography prepared fine-grained structures, the models were more homogeneous and smoother, and soft layering remains were visible if compared with plaster grainy surface structure showing sharp edges of orthorhombic crystals. The study has shown the precision of 3D SLA models along all three axes, a, b, c, in the whole model volume and also in cross-section. The advantages for dentistry are the colors: white, yellow and light brown; SLA models are stable and can be used repeatedly. In addition, a virtual database of models can save space in the dental office or lab.

This study clarifies the need for a renewed account of the body in physiotherapy to fill sizable gaps between physiotherapeutical theory and practice. Physiotherapists are trained to approach bodily functioning from an objectivist perspective; however, their therapeutic interactions with patients are not limited to the provision of natural-scientific explanations. Physiotherapists’ practice corresponds well to theorisation of the body as the bearer of original bodily intentionality, as outlined by Merleau-Ponty and elaborated upon by enactivists. We clarify how physiotherapeutical practice corroborates Merleau-Ponty’s critical arguments against objectivist interpretations of the body; particularly, his analyses demonstrate that norms of optimal corporeal functioning are highly individual and variable in time and thus do not directly depend on generic physiological structures. In practice, objectively measurable physical deviations rarely correspond to specific subjective difficulties and, similarly, patients’ reflective insights into their own motor deficiencies do not necessarily produce meaningful motor improvements. Physiotherapeutical procedures can be understood neither as mechanical manipulations of patients’ machine-like bodies by experts nor as a process of such manipulation by way of instructing patients’ explicit conscious awareness. Rather, physiotherapeutical practice and theory can benefit from the philosophical interpretation of motor disorders as modifications of bodily intentionality. Consequently, motor performances addressed in physiotherapy are interpreted as relational features of a living organism coupled with its environment, and motor disorders are approached as failures to optimally manage the motor requirements of a given situation owing to a relative loss of the capacity to structure one’s relation with their environment through motor action. Building on this, we argue that the process of physiotherapy is most effective when understood as a bodily interaction to guide patients towards discovering better ways of grasping a situation as meaningful through bodily postures and movements.

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This article aims to explain how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of embodiment contributes to the theory and practice of physiotherapy. The mechanistic conception of the body, to which physiotherapy usually refers, assumes a universal model of its functioning and interprets its relationship to the environment causally. In fact, however, it does not allow a satisfactory explanation of the efficiency of the therapeutic methods used in practice. In contrast, Merleau-Ponty’s concept of motor intentionality points to the fact that the body “understands” the practical meaning of a situation. Bodily understanding is then manifested in particular by the ability to adequately differentiate, adapt or vary motor and postural responses to environmental challenges. This change in the conception of embodiment also has important implications for understanding the therapist-patient relationship and the intervention itself. Physiotherapists should draw more on the fact that they are themselves a body and, on this basis, guide the patient’s bodily intentionality towards a more developed understanding of the practical meaning of situations.