2007•Egyptian Dental Journal /Egyptian Dental JournalRequires access
THE EFFECT OF UNILATERAL FUNCTIONAL DISTURBANCES
Ashraf Abou Khalaf, Shereen Shoukry
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Abstract
Unilateral masticatory disturbances that force any individual to utilize one side in mastication
due to avoidance conditioning are a common daily finding in dental practice. Our purpose in this
study was to assess changes that occur in the muscles of mastication particularly masseter and temporalis
muscles bilaterally in patients with unilateral functional disturbances using surface electromyography
(EMG). It was shown that in unilateral mastication the ipsilateral muscles (working
side) produced most of the work. Higher electromyographic (EMG) activity wasn't achromatized
for the anterior temporalis or the masseter muscles but was changing between patients.
Nevertheless, it was found that summation of muscular activity of the functioning side compensate
for the activity of the other side. EMG activity decreased significantly in mostly all patients of this
study ingested soft food (banana), in comparison to higher EMG activity with who ingested hard
food (peanuts).