Abstract
In performing occlusal reconstruction in daily clinical practice, the muscle position is consistently checked (by tapping movements) throughout the course of treatment, that is, before, during and after the operation. However, there have been made few reports that have attempted to clarify the three-dimensional position of what is generally called “tapping point” (the muscle position of the mandibular identified by tapping movements). ). . We e therefore conducted a study on the tap-ping point using ARCUS digma II, a digital mandibular movement measuring device produced by KaVo. In addition, we compared between subjects with and without mandibular dysfunction. Twenty subjects without disorder were selected from a group of males and females in their 20’s to 40’s, and six subjects with the disorder, i.e., diagnosed as oro-mandibular disorder, from male and female patients in their 20’s to 50’s. Data was collected whilst subjects were made to perform light tapping occlusion (hereinafter called as tapping occlusion). As each subject performed the tapping occlusion five times, the intra-class correlation (ICC) of each and every subject was 0.999 and the above for both subject groups. Hence tapping occlusion proved highly reproducible. Convergence of the tapping points were observed (over many tapping movements) in both subject groups, no significant difference was observed in dispersion of tapping points between the two subject groups. These results suggest that the tapping occlusion is a useful and functional indicator for horizontal mandibular position taking.
