Study of Electromyographic Signals During Chewing Process In Patients with Fixed Partial Denture

Electromyography signals (EMG) were recorded whilst chewing a test material for a duration of 10 seconds in order for investigating the masticatory muscle performance of patients with different dental status. Patients were split into two groups according to their teeth status. One of two groups does not need any fixed dentures (i.e., full dentate group); the other one is partially edentulous group lacking 4-6 teeth on the right side, and is treated using fixed partial dentures. Chewing gum is opted for the test food since it can be easily applied to the patients. Electromyographic records are obtained from the right masticatory muscle. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) analysis method is adopted in order to evaluate the muscle activities using the EMG signals. In patients with fixed partial dentures, the amplitude and the power spectrum density (PSD) values of the EMG signals are discovered to be dramatically higher than that of the full dentate subjects. The results have indicated that there are important differences in masticatory performance between two groups, and chewing function in subjects with prosthesis is lower than the patients with intact dentition. Subjects with fixed partial dentures may compensate for their poor chewing performance by applying greater forces with their masticatory muscles in a longer chewing duration. Hence, it is recommended that the avoidance of tooth loss would provide better functioning for the chewing process.