Development of a wireless measuring system for bruxism integrated into occlusal splints

The SensoBite System is a novel measuring system for bruxing events that can be integrated into occlusal splints. It is a diagnostic tool that enables clinicians to measure the actual wear time of the splint as the basis to monitor and enhance patient compliance. It also offers the opportunity to correlate bruxing events with a time of day or with particular circumstances. Furthermore, it allows better assessment of the effectiveness of further interventions (eg physiotherapy). The measuring system is currently being investigated in a preclinical and clinical setting. As a first step, the reliability of the measuring system was demonstrated with the help of a laboratory test. A study with human subjects was conducted to verify the validity of the measuring and transmission system, in which the subjects had to carry out different loading tasks following a measuring protocol. The test results showed that the individual events could be distinguished clearly in the data and also showed the pertinent force distribution over time. Currently, a comparative clinical study is being conducted to compare the results of the SensoBite System with those of electromyograms as the gold standard. The first set of results show a high degree of consistence of the two measuring modalities. Keywords: occlusal splint, splint, validity, reliability, compliance, SensoBite, bruxism, craniomandibular dysfunction