Study of the movements of soft tissues surrounding a denture (teeth)--trial construction of 3-D transducer

Abstract

Pressures exerted by the oral soft tissue which surrounds a denture have a great influence upon the location of the dunture border, the shape of the flange and the arrangement of artificial teeth.The amount of pressures has been measured by electrical methods in prosthodontics, orthodontics and in other fields of dentistry. However, it is difficult to study the direction of the pressure and those reports are few. In this type of study, it is necessary not only to measure the amount of the pressure but also to record the direction with respect to the oral tissue involved in dynamic movements.To record the direction of the pressure, we developed a new transducer having three different dimensional outputs with respect to the X, Y and Z axes.From the result of standardized controlled experiment, it could be concluded that this transducer has sufficient quality to be used in the oral cavity as well as recording the direction of the pressure.