Assessment of Forearm Muscle Work in Various Dental Activities

Abstract

Conservative Dentistry has the primary goal of the diagnosis and treatment of dental caries and includes the techniques and procedures to restore the teeth to full function and appearance. There is paucity of literature available about the type of muscle work in dental procedure. Since dentists need good manual dexterity as well as hand skills, studying the muscle activity in the forearm during dexterity tasks would give us an idea about type of muscle work involve. Hence this study aims at doing electromyography analysis of the same. In this study design, postgraduate students and dental faculty of Conservative dentistry department were evaluated for muscle work of flexor carpi ulnaris (FCU), extensor carpi radialis longus (ECRL), flexor digitorum profundus (FDP), and flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS). These muscle works were assessed while performing common dental procedures like drilling, pulp excavation, and filling. Surface electromyography was used for the study. Study suggests that FCU has no difference of muscle work (Friedmans test P = 0.16) for all three dental procedures. ECRL (P = 0.029) has more muscle work while performing fine activity as pulp excavation whereas for muscles like FDP and FDS muscle work increases in fine activities like filling and pulp excavation. Difference of muscle work among various dental activities for FDS and FDP is P = 0.001 and P = 0.0095 respectively. This study demonstrates that the risk associated with repetitive dental tasks should be considered as weight and design of instruments could be having influence on muscle work.