Department of Sports Medicine/Dentistry, Division of Public Health, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), 1-5-45 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8549, Japan.
Department of Advanced Biomaterials, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), 1-5-45 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8549, Japan.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Feb 22;21(4):1503. doi: 10.3390/s21041503.
Teeth clenching during exercise is important for sports performance and health. Recently, several mouth guard (MG)-type wearable devices for exercise were studied because they do not disrupt the exercise. In this study, we developed a wearable MG device with force sensors on both sides of the maxillary first molars to monitor teeth clenching. The force sensor output increased linearly up to 70 N. In four simple occlusion tests, the trends exhibited by the outputs of the MG sensor were consistent with those of an electromyogram (EMG), and the MG device featured sufficient temporal resolution to measure the timing of teeth clenching. When the jaw moved, the MG sensor outputs depended on the sensor position. The MG sensor output from the teeth-grinding test agreed with the video-motion analysis results. It was comparatively difficult to use the EMG because it contained a significant noise level. Finally, the usefulness of the MG sensor was confirmed through an exercise tolerance test. This study indicated that the developed wearable MG device is useful for monitoring clenching timing and duration, and the degree of clenching during exercise, which can contribute to explaining the relationship between teeth clenching and sports performance.
运动时咬牙对于运动表现和健康很重要。最近，人们研究了几种用于运动的口腔防护（MG）式可穿戴设备，因为它们不会干扰运动。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种带有上颌第一磨牙两侧力传感器的可穿戴 MG 设备，以监测咬牙情况。力传感器的输出在 70N 以内呈线性增加。在四项简单的咬合测试中，MG 传感器输出的趋势与肌电图（EMG）的趋势一致，并且 MG 设备具有足够的时间分辨率来测量咬牙的时间。当颌部移动时，MG 传感器的输出取决于传感器的位置。磨牙测试的 MG 传感器输出与视频运动分析结果一致。由于包含显著的噪声水平，因此使用 EMG 比较困难。最后，通过运动耐量测试证实了 MG 传感器的有用性。这项研究表明，开发的可穿戴 MG 设备可用于监测运动时的咬牙时间和持续时间以及咬牙的程度，这有助于解释咬牙与运动表现之间的关系。
