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Whilst the mechanical side of treatment is relatively
straight forward, success depends upon adopting an
appropriate treatment plan. Studies have shown that less
that half the treatment plans adopted by practitioners are
ideal and this considerably compromises the standard of
result which is obtained. Orthoplanner has been shown to
provide treatment plans which have the same peer support
as those produced by an average UK NHS Consultant
Orthodontist with 10 year postgraduate training and
experience (Stephens and Mackin,1998)
Orthoplanner is a Windows-based program. It uses a number
of techniques including rulebase reading, but forward and
backward chaining and fuzzy logic based representations of
orthodontic knowledge (Mackin 1992). Extensive use is made
of interactive graphics to input clinical data. In
addition to treatment planning advice, the program provides
extensive clinical support including instructions to
patients, pre-formed letters and a 200 page hypertext
manual with 1000 supporting references.
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