Citation

Takeda T, Ishigami K, Nakajima K, Naitoh K, Kurokawa K, Handa J, Shomura M, Regner CW. Dent. Traumatol. 2008; 24(3): 360-365.

Affiliation

Department of Sports Dentistry, Tokyo Dental College, Chiba, Japan. takedat@attglobal.net

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1600-9657.2008.00576.x

PMID

18489486

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the influence anterior occlusion, of mouthguards, has on protecting against a direct collision to the maxillary anterior teeth. In other words, the support mandibular dentition has when wearing a mouthguard. Two types of mouthguards were used for this study, one with an appropriate anterior occlusion or a mouthguard with positive anterior occlusion (MGAO+) and another which was a single-layer mouthguard lacking the same occlusion or a mouthguard with negative anterior occlusion (MGAO-) but with the same thickness on the buccal side. The instruments used for testing were a pendulum-type impact device with two interchangeable impact objects (a steel ball and a baseball), with a plastic jaw model having artificial teeth. Four testing conditions were observed: one with the jaw open without a mouthguard (Open NoMG), the second with the jaw clenching (loaded with 30 kg weight) without a mouthguard (Clench. NoMG), the third with the jaw clenching with MGAO- (Clench. MGAO-) and the last with the jaw clenching with MGAO+ (Clench. MGAO+). The results are as follows: both types of mouthguards showed the effects in reducing the distortion of the teeth. However, the effect was significantly obvious (steel ball = about 57% shock absorption ability, baseball = about 26%) in the mouthguard with anterior occlusion or support by lower dentition through mouthguard (Clench. MGAO+) than Clench. MGAO-. Thus, the influence of anterior occlusion of mouthguards or the support of mandibular dentition through wearing a mouthguard (MGAO+) is indispensable in reducing the impact force and tooth distortion. The results of this research should further contribute to the establishment of guidelines for safer mouthguards.

Language: en