Developing a New Appliance to Dissipate Mechanical Load on Teeth and Improve Limitation of Vertical Mouth Opening

Abstract

OBJECTIVES The principle of leverage to superpose the convex surfaces of two shells was applied to develop a device for treating limitation of mouth opening and called it the "shell-shaped mouth opener" and analyzed pressure on the teeth with the TheraBite(®) appliance and the shell-shaped mouth opening appliance. MATERIAL AND METHODS To compare the TheraBite(®) appliance and the shell-shaped mouth opening appliance, pressure on the teeth in the dentition model with both devices was analyzed using the Inastomer(®) flexible conductive sensor. RESULTS The load was better dispersed to each tooth in the shell-shaped mouth opening appliance in the all quadrants compared to the TheraBite(®) appliance. CONCLUSIONS The present study revealed that the shell-shaped mouth opening appliance which was originally invented in our lab, dissipated the mechanical load on teeth more evenly than the TheraBite(®) appliance.