Masticatory rhythm analyzing method and clinical application.

The rhythm of mastication is one of the important factors in evaluating the masticatory function. This masticatory rhythm should be observed from both the mandibular movements and masticatory muscular activities. In addition, the changes in the rhythm from the beginning to the end of the mastication process should be reflected by the chosen parameters. In order to achieve this, a new analyzing method was devised in which the electromyographic burst duration time was divided into three divisions based upon the mandibular movement phase, and two parameters were chosen to represent the rhythm. In this paper, the new method was used on the patients with a temporomandibular joint dysfunction and patients who had a mandibular segmental resection in order to evaluate its validity and clinical applicability. By the comparison of the masticatory rhythms before and after treatment, the effectiveness of this analyzing method in evaluating the masticatory functions was shown.