Abstract
Pediatric dentistry comprehensively covers the oral health care through the active period of growth and development in human life cycle. Not only the normal physical growth in the orofacial region, but also the developmental process of stomatognathic function in this period are necessary to clarify it, because the functional development of children is always progressing and leads to the maturation of masticatory function in adulthood. Jaw motion should give a lot of important information about oral function because it is performed by the functional integration of teeth, maxillary and mandibular bones, masticatory muscle, nervous system, and other organs. The application of six-degree-of-freedom jaw movement tracking devices must be the most suitable method to evaluate jaw motion, and to detect in detail the dynamic characteristics of the whole mandibular function. In this study, the application of a few measurement systems to children was discussed including two sets of our systems, and some results on jaw motion analyses of children were presented, 1) Characteristics of mandibular excursion of children, 2) Relationship between occlusal facets and lateral excursions of primary molars, 3) Six year longitudinal changes of jaw tracks of one child, 4) Characteristics of condylar motion during opening-closing movement, 5) Focusing characteristics of the condylar tracks, 6) Design of the curved mesh diagram of mandibular excursion, etc. Jaw motion of children had many different characteristics in comparison with adults.
