Bruxism is a much-discussed clinical issue in dentistry. Although bruxism is not a life-threatening disorder, it can influence the quality of human life, especially through dental problems, such as tooth wear, frequent fractures of dental restorations and pain in the oro-facial region. Therefore, various clinical methods have been devised to assess bruxism over the last 70 years. This paper reviews the assessment of bruxism, provides information on various assessment methods which are available in clinical situations and discusses their effectiveness and usefulness. Currently, there is no definitive method for assessing bruxism clinically that has reasonable diagnostic and technical validity, affects therapeutic decisions and is cost effective. One future direction is to refine questionnaire items and clinical examination because they are the easiest to apply in everyday practice. Another possible direction is to establish a method that can measure actual bruxism activity directly using a device that can be applied to patients routinely. More clinical studies should examine the clinical impact of bruxism on oral structures, treatment success and the factors influencing the decision-making process in dental treatment.

This study investigated the effect of stabilization splint (SS) and palatal splint (PS), which had the same design as SS except for the elimination of the occlusal coverage, on sleep bruxism (SB) using a portable electromyographic (EMG) recording system. Sixteen bruxers participated in this study. The EMG activities of the right masseter muscle during sleep were recorded for three nights each in the following five recording periods: before, immediately after, and 2, 4 and 6 weeks after the insertion of the splint. The crossover design, in which each splint was applied to each subject for 6 weeks with an interval of 2 months for a washout period, was employed in this randomized-controlled study. The number of SB events, duration and total activities of SB were analysed. The number of SB events before the insertion of splints (baseline) was 2.98 +/- 1.61 times h(-1). Both splints significantly reduced SB immediately after the insertion of devices (P < 0.05, one-way repeated-measures anova followed by Dunnett); however, no reduction was observed in 2, 4 or 6 weeks (P > 0.05). There was no statistical difference in the effect on SB between the SS and PS (P > 0.05, two-way repeated-measures anova). Both splints reduced the masseter EMG activities associated with SB; however, the effect was transient.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract