Reproducibility of occlusal findings. A comparison between clinical and articulator analyses

The occlusal relationship may be examined clinically in the patient's mouth and on models mounted in an articulator. For the purpose of comparing the reproducibility of the two methods, the occlusion of 10 subjects was analyzed twice with at least 1 week's interval. Certain variations were demonstrated with both methods. Overall reproducibility of tooth contact was observed more frequently in the articulator than in the mouth. The methods showed an equal degree of consistency for measurements of slide in centric. However, when subjects were classified by the extent of occlusal interference, the findings of the clinical analysis seemed to be more reproducible than those recorded by means of the articulator.