Evaluating Masticatory Function Based on Occlusal Balance Measured by a Laser Method

Abstract

Occlusal balance assessments were performed on individuals with natural teeth in position and fixed molar bridge wearers. Our findings are summarized as follows: 1. Subjects with natural dentition 1) Eccentricity from the displacement of the centroid of the volume of coronal portions measured by the permeable laser method averaged 8.1%. In stark contrast to this, this value was calculated at well over 20% using the Dental Prescale W type. This suggests that displacement of the centroid of occlusal force has a tendency to increase when measured by the pressure measurements paper method. 2) The position of the centroid was found to shift anteriorly when the laser method was used compared with that found by the Dental Prescale. This suggests that the use of the laser will facilitate assessment of occlusal balance including the anterior-posterior occlusal balance. 2. Bridge wearers 1) Before the subjects inserted the bridges, the displacement measured by the laser method was 44.3% on average. The rate dropped significantly to 8.1% (p<0.01) after inserting the bridges. This indicates a remarkable recovery of occlusal balance due to the prosthetic device. 2) In those bridge wearers who have difficulty chewing food, those showing displacement had no difficulty. This finding suggests that whether the occlusal balance in an individual is favorable or not is related to the presence or absence of some food that the person finds hard to chew. From the perspective of maintaining of homeostasis in the oral environment including dentition, it would be meaningful to assess occlusal balance. Furthermore, our study showed that masticatory function can be assessed from the perspective of occlusal balance measured three-dimensionally by the laser method.