Bruxism Levels and Daily Behaviors: 3 Weeks of Measurement and Correlation

Aims: To test whether 3-week duration recordings of sleep bruxism are correlated with daily behaviors. Methods: Twelve patients with a sleep bruxism disorder were monitored to see if any daily behaviors (stress, physical activity, anger), jaw-pain/headache symptoms, or sleep quality were correlated with their sleep bruxism levels. A telemetric-based system was used for monitoring bruxism levels, which were detected with an intra-appliance piezoelectric film system. Bruxism was defined as a force applied to the occlusal surface of the splint at or above a level of 10% maximum voluntary contraction. Bruxism levels were recorded at night for at least 3 weeks on the 12 subjects in this study (6 females and 6 males). Patients used standard (100 mm) visual analog scaling methods during this period to rate their daily behaviors, sleep quality, and jaw-pain/ headache symptoms in a diary. Correlation analysis was performed between these recorded variables. Results: The subjects demonstrated both bruxism and sleep disturbance, and the mean bruxism score for the male subjects was significantly higher than that for the female subjects. Overall, no single diary variable was consistently correlated with the bruxism levels in these subjects. Conclusion: These data support the conclusion that bruxism is not strongly related to any of the subject's self-monitored daytime activities or sleep quality. Keywords: bruxism, sleep quality, piezofilm