A Smart Dental Prosthesis to Restore Dental Proprioceptivity

Natural teeth eventually fall out as one becomes older, making it more difficult chewing, speaking and get a reference plane for the body postural equilibrium. To minimize the problem, the missing teeth are eventually replaced by implants that restore the referred functions but miss the sensing of the applied force. As a consequence, the masticatory forces become erratic as the brain receives no feedback (or inaccurate) sensing information. The present work aims at developing a preliminary prototype of a smart dental implant meant to restore the proprioceptive control of the masticatory and chewing muscle activity. After the description of the physiological and biomechanical aspects related to tooth loss, details are provided on the force sensing and electrical stimulation provided by the active implant being proposed. Simulation results obtained with the development tool of the GreenPAK programmable chip being used are included.