System for measurement of human tongue strength exerted on the teeth
Oral forces act in the maintenance of dental balance. The pressures exerted
by the lips, tongue and cheeks in their usual positions, although small,
are large enough to move the teeth if they are unbalanced, as they have
long duration. On the other hand, the pressures exerted by these organs
during the function have high magnitudes, are variable and have short
duration. So their influence in dental movement is not clear.
The objective of this project is to develop a method for characterization
of tongue force in habitual position, speech and swallowing.
With that purpose, the Biomechanics Engineering Group from Universidade
Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, developed a measurement system composed
by two intraoral resistive-based sensor, with 9 mm of diameter, attached
to the upper central incisors lingual surfaces through a resin adhesive.
The application of a force to the active sensing area of this sensor
results in a change in the resistance of the sensing element in inverse
proportion
to the force applied. A converter circuit converts the electric resistance
into electric tension and generates an analogical sign, which is transformed
into a digital sign by a data acquisition device. Treatment and storage
systems and graphic interface were included in a software that stores
the graph containing the time x strength pairs.
The system is under adjustment
and calibration. Data collecting phase will be started, and measurements
will be conducted.
TEAM: Tulimar P. Machado Cornacchia, Andréa Rodrigues
Motta, Estevam Barbosa de las Casas, Márcio Falcão Santos
Barroso, Cláudio Gomes da Costa, Jorge Milton Elian Saffar, Carlos
Alberto Cimini Jr., Jéssica Mara de Carvalho Silva, Renata Maria
Moreira Moraes Furlan, André Lopes, Leonardo Torres, Eduardo M. L.
Lima, Amanda Freitas Valentim and Laís Sant'Ana Munari.
