1996 Volume 17 Issue 1 Pages 43-47
The purpose of this study was to compare the occlusal contact area, occlusal pressure and occlusal force between the students (12-18 years old) with individual normal occlusion and malocclusion.
Dental Prescale® were used for measurment. The number of materials were 173 students (male 85 and female 88) with individual normal occlusion and 151 students (male 70 and female 81) with malocclusion.
All students were undergone dental examination and questionnaires about the episode of TMD and orthodontic treatment. The training to bite the sheet for measurment was done beforehand. The results were as follows; The students who had malocclusion had shown the lower occlusal contact area and lower occlusal force than students with normal occlusion. Especially in students with crowding, posterial crossbite, and open bite, it has shown lower figures about occlusal contact area and occlusal force. From the point of the relationship between the masticatory function and the growth of face, it suggests that the malocclusion should be treated as soon as earlier, especially crowding, posterial crossbite and open bite.
