Abstract
It is known that occlusal contacts in the intercuspal position (ICP) change at different of clenching levels. Despite this fact, an occlusal adjustment generally is carried out at only one clenching level.
We investigated the variation of left-right (L/R) and anteroposterior (A/P) occlusal force balances in ICP with an increase of clenching level using a T-Scan system. In the first experiment, six normal subjects were asked to clench on the T-Scan sensor at 20, 40 and 60% of maximum voluntary contraction level. Statistics, which showed total force, L/R and A/P occlusal force balances, were calculated from these T-Scan data recorded and used to evaluate the occlusal force balances in ICP. Furthermore, we compared variation of L/R and A/P occlusal force balances with an increase of the total force between twenty-six normal subjects and nine patients with craniomandibular disorders (CMD).
As a result, these occlusal force balances of the normal subjects showed significantly less variation than patients with CMD.
We found that occlusal force balances in ICP must be evaluated at various clenching levels in order to discover variation of occlusal force balances.
