Polymeric piezoelectric sensors and remote communication for detection of bruxism

Active materials are capable of responding in a controlled way to different external physical or chemical stimulus by changing some of their properties. These materials can be used to design and develop sensors, actuators and multifunctional systems with a large number of applications for developing medical devices (for both surgery and implants). On the other hand, Bruxism is a health problem consisting on grinding or tightly clenching the upper and lower teeth, and both phenomena lead to wear of the teeth and produce a noise during the night that is sufficiently loud to disturb the sleep of anyone sharing the bedroom. The tension produced also causes problems in the muscles, tissues and other structures surrounding the jaw, ear pain, headaches, lesions to the teeth and disorders in the jaw joints. For an early, rapid, effective and economical diagnosis of bruxism, we propose the use of instrumented splints based on the use of active materials that detect and record the intensity and duration of interdentally pressure episodes. This paper introduces the design, manufacture and testing of using instrumented splint for bruxism detection. The contribution of this work is basically focused on using piezoelectric polymeric sensors, taking advantage of their reduced thickness, and avoiding the alteration of the patient´s bite. In addition, the system allows a quantitative assessment of intraoral pressure that consequently allows the diagnosis of bruxism behaviour at an early stage, aiming to perform corrective actions before irreversible dental wear appears. The first trials performed allowed to demonstrate the feasibility of the system, which also includes wireless communication capabilities for improving on telemedicine tasks.