Abstract
Recently in aged society, the role of oral care is getting larger and larger because keeping oral health can bring aged people higher quality of life. So it is quite important to develop an educational environment in order to grow up nurses with practical oral care skill. In order to conduct appropriate oral care training, we attempted to develop an oral care simulator. This paper describes the first prototype of oral care simulator and its software to serve students in nursing an effective oral care training environment. A tooth alignment 3D model data was prepared for the simulator. Arranged by a 3D-CAD software so that it can embed pressure sensors to detect brushing, a tooth alignment was modeled using a fused deposition modeling machine. Sensor signals from pressure sensor are transferred to a computer via A/D convertor. Software for oral care training was also developed. Based on demand with oral care education, the software can store sensor signal with temporal sequence to record oral care procedure, and it can evaluate its procedure in addition to compare one’s own records in the past or other specialists.
