title: Assessment of tooth mobility using small loads. I. Technical devices and calculations of tooth mobility in periodontal health and disease.
abstract: An apparatus for recording tooth mobility of maxillary anterior teeth using loads below 100 p in a bucco-lingual direction is described. Strain gauges and a differential transformer are used as sensors of force and displacement. The displacement is recorded at the same location on the tooth surface and in the same direction as the loading force. Compressed air is used as the source of force. Documentation of signals is obtained by means of a two-channel potentiometric recorder. Tooth mobility was studied in six subjects with healthy periodontal conditions and in six subjects with moderate periodontal disease. Repeated measurements under standardized conditions demonstrated a satisfactory reproducibility of the measuring method. Tooth mobility curves within the 20-80 p loading range were transformed to lines of regression. Analysis of such lines seems to provide further information of tooth mobility qualities as compared to previous methods of tooth mobility measurements.
mesh_terms: D003799:Dental Stress Analysis; D006801:Humans; D010510:Periodontal Diseases / Q000150:complications*; D010517:Periodontics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D010519:Periodontium / Q000502:physiology*; D014086:Tooth Mobility / Q000175:diagnosis*