Bruxism used to screen for bruxism in both the clinical and research settings. For tooth grinders who live in same household with other people, diagnosis of grinding is straightforward: Housemates or family members would advise a bruxer of recurrent grinding. Grinders who live alone can likewise resort to a sound-activated tape recorder. To confirm the condition of clenching, on the other hand, bruxers may rely on such devices as the Bruxchecker, Bruxcore, or a beeswax-bearing biteplate. The Individual (personal) Tooth-Wear Index was developed to objectively quantify the degree of tooth wear in an individual, without being affected by the number of
Bruxism sleep, the voluntary muscles are inactive due to physiologic motor paralysis, and the jaw is usually open. Some bruxism activity is rhythmic with bite force pulses of tenths of a second (like chewing), and some have longer bite force pulses of 1 to 30 seconds (clenching). Some individuals clench without significant lateral movements. Bruxism can also be regarded as a disorder of repetitive, unconscious contraction of muscles. This typically involves the masseter muscle and the anterior portion of the temporalis (the large outer muscles that clench), and the lateral pterygoids, relatively small bilateral muscles that act together to perform sideways