The plaque control record (PCR) has been widely used for evaluating the cleansing state of teeth. After plaque staining, the stained tooth surfaces are examined by a dentist, and an assistant manually records the results. To create electronic dental records, the handwritten data must then be input into a computer. The assistant sometimes inputs the data concurrently with the oral examination by the dentist. However, the input of the PCR into the computer is time-consuming. Therefore, we developed a system in which the utterances made by the dentist examining the oral cavity are collected by a microphone, and the PCR is converted to text using speech recognition software and directly input into a computer.
The tooth numbers were defined as ichiban to hachiban, and the stained tooth surfaces were expressed as numbers. The tooth numbers and stained tooth surface numbers were input into one cell of Excel from the maxillary right most posterior tooth. Twenty cases with various PCRs were produced. Verbal input was performed five times for each case, and the input time was measured. In addition, the input recognition error rate was evaluated.
As a result, the mean input time was 137 seconds, and the input recognition error rate was 0.06%.
The direct verbal input of PCR may also be clinically useful.
