Keiji Saratani

Application of mechanical mobility of periodontal tissues to tooth mobility examination.

Tooth mobility examination is important in planning dental treatment, as it may give an indication of alveolar bone loss and the condition of the periodontal ligament. In clinical dental diagnosis a manual tooth mobility examination is useful. However, its determination of tooth mobility is subjective and depends on the skill and experience of the clinician. The authors have previously reported on a device for measuring the biomechanical properties of human periodontium using an impedance head. Using this device, the mechanical mobility of periodontium can be measured and the mechanical parameters of the periodontal physical model are obtained. Tooth mobility is defined objectively on the basis of discriminant scores of mechanical parameters, and a mobility triangle (MT) figure is drawn as a record for visual interpretation. The paper describes the validation of the mechanical mobility measurements and their interpretation using mobility parameters and a personal computer to produce a mobility triangle figure. The method is compared favourably with clinical mobility measurement. The relationship of the model to underlying pathology is tested by measurements performed on various tooth model systems.

Relationship between food texture and masticatory pain in patients with craniomandibular disorders.

This study was made to measure the food texture, caused the masticatory pain inpatients with craniomandibular disorders.The questionnaire was conducted on 40 patients about 33 kinds of food, whether these foods caused masticatory pain or not. The food texture was measured by Texturometer.The results obtained were as follows:1. The food which caused the masticatory pain in more than half patients were French bread (24 patients) and grilled dried squid (22 patients). On the other hand, foods which caused no masticatory pain were bean curd, jelly and marshmallow.2. Food texture mostly related to the masticatory pain was not only hardness but also gumminess, expressed the required force which grind food to the extent of ones swallowable condition.