Effect of occlusal reconstruction on the reproducibility of chewing movements

The jaw movement patterns of five subjects with reconstructed occlusion were compared with those of 10 normal dentate subjects. The degree of conformity between closing and opening pathways in the intercuspal area and the reproducibility of these pathways within and outside the intercuspal zone were measured with a computer-based system. The mean linear separations between opening and closing pathways and deviations around these pathways for the reconstructed group were consistently smaller than those for the control group. The results suggest that reconstructed subjects use displacement patterns which show less variation than do subjects with natural dentitions.