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Quantifiable EMG Standards for Health or Disability

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“A disability is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities”.

There are established quantifiable standards that have been established with in the scientific community in determining the quality of health of any masticatory system. Another parameter that dentists can use to determined whether a patients masticatory system is in good health or disabled/impaired is to measure their clenching ability. Measuring a patients musclerecruitment health before, during or after any occlusal treatment or condition can be very informative.

EMG Studies of Bite Force in Patients with Functional Disorders have shown based on controlled studies that used extensive statistical test that maximal bite force and the electrical muscle activity during maximal bite in the intercuspal position are significantly weaker in patients with functional disorders of the masticatory system than controls without such disorders.

What this means is if your muscles are not able to sufficiently recruit muscle activity less than 150 mV when testing with functional clenching EMG tests…. that persons adjusted splint, their natural bite, their finished orthodontic occlusion, or restorative biting ability would be recognized as dysfunctional or impaired.

Wouldn’t it be so informative to know whether what is deemed successful TMD treatment or successful orthodontic treatment or successful splint therapy, or successful occlusal adjustment therapy, etc. could actually be measured?

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