New Generation of Dental Apps: Innovation Review

Smartphone apps have become a common human companion over the last decade. Besides apps for entertainment, there is plenty of handy daily software, such as habit calendars, personal cost trackers, smart reminders, and various solutions for individuals' health, such as exercise trackers and calorie counters.

Some dental solutions are also available on the market, but let's keep that for another time. Today, we want to review a few projects under development which recently released a few studies about their feasibility.

Toothbrushing trainer

Regular and proper toothbrushing is necessary for oral health, especially tooth cavity prevention. But it's unclear to ordinary people whether they clean their teeth effectively, and often, they can ignore some important areas in the mouth, overfocusing on others.

A new toothbrushing monitor system – Brush Buds – from a team of British developers is dedicated to teaching people how to do it properly. This app connects to wireless headphones' Interial Measurement Units – an in-built device that detects acceleration, angular rates, etc. – to track individual movement during toothbrushing and guide them through that process, helping to clean all areas of the human mouth thoroughly.

For now, BrushBuds showed about 84% accuracy in defining six distinct tooth areas. The app still requires further upgrades and tuning, but it shows huge potential in the current development stage.

Face muscle trainer

In elderly age, humans' masticatory system and tongue muscles become weaker, leading to problems with chewing and even causing a dry mouth condition. Trying to prevent these conditions, a group of Chinese specialists is developing an app equipped with an AI algorithm that acts like your personal trainer for "facial gymnastics."

This app contains about 12 tongue, lips, and jaw exercises. The AI controls users' movements and guides them via a simple interface to do such gymnastics properly.

According to published research, which involved 113 neurologically healthy individuals aged over 50, this app can effectively increase masticatory efficiency, tongue function, and occlusal force.

The entire course lasted about eight weeks, and all participants, despite their age, had no problem with using the app due to its intuitive and straightforward interface.

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