The Complete Handbook of Dental Mouthguards

Chapter 1: Understanding Dental Mouthguards

A dental mouthguard is a protective appliance worn over the teeth and, in most designs, covering the gums and the surrounding soft tissue. It is a deceptively simple device: a shaped piece of polymer that sits in the mouth and absorbs or disperses mechanical energy. That simplicity hides a rigorous engineering and clinical challenge. The oral environment is wet, warm, and full of microorganisms, the forces involved in a blow to the jaw can exceed a thousand Newtons in a fraction of a second, and the material must remain flexible enough to be comfortable but rigid enough to hold its shape under load. There is no single perfect material or design that solves all of these problems, which is why the market is filled with a wide variety of products that look similar but perform very differently.

The primary function of a mouthguard is to reduce the force transmitted from the teeth to the brain, the temporomandibular joint, and the skull base. When you take a direct hit to the chin, the lower jaw (mandible) is driven upwards and backwards. The condyle, the rounded end of the jawbone, sits in a socket called the glenoid fossa, which is located directly beneath the base of the skull. Without a mouthguard, that force travels up the jawbone, through the teeth, and into the skull. The teeth, being hard and incompressible, transmit the energy efficiently. The result can be a fractured tooth, a concussion, or a condylar fracture.