[Biomechanical study on dento-alveolar arch forces]

This study has two major objectives. The first one is to draw attention in an original device especially conceived and designed to measure bite force; the second purpose of the study is represented by proper measurements of individual bite force during bilateral clenching for two lots of patients using this device and comparing the outcomes to those of other similar studies, in order to prove its practical utility.

62 young (20-35 years of age) healthy patients were tested: 35 fully dentured subjects in control group and 27 subjects with various single unit treated edentation, in test group. The two potentiometers from the lateral side of the device are connected to a computer which would measure, register and interpret the outcomes during three different sessions of clenching for each patient.

Measured values showed that the mean maximum bilateral bite force in patients with no edentation was, in all cases, higher than in patients with single unit treated edentation for all three sessions. Because the device allows simultaneous bilateral registration of the bite force, during the same session, it is obvious that it can measure also the asymmetry between left and right dental hemi-arches. Therefore, in control group, mean values found in left side were higher (369.36N - 399.75N) than right side (352.18N - 392.15N); an opposite situation was found in test group: higher values were found in right side (313.75N - 329.43N) comparing to left side (310.54N -321.53N).

The device proved to be usefull not only for measuring bite force in one region of dental arches, but it is designed to simultaneous register parameters from various regions; the values obtained in this study are similar to those reported by others authors who used more sophisticated devices, so that this simple device proves its usefulness.