Abstract:

Objective To study the short-term effects of nociceptive trigeminal inhibitory tension suppression system（NTI-tss） and occlusal stabilization splint（OS） on sleep bruxism patients. Methods Ten patients received the two splint treatments in a randomized cross-over fashion：An NTI-tss and an OS for a 1-week period, respectively. Record the bruxism episodes per hour, micro-arousals per hour of the patients before wearing the splints（baseline）, the first night and 1 week after wearing the splints with polysomnography. Statistical analysis was performed with SAS 9.1 by means of mixed effect model analysis. Results There were no differences among the micro-arousal index of the baseline, the first night and 1 week later with both types of the splints（P>0.05）. The NTI-tss was associated with a significant reduction in bruxism index compared with baseline. The bruxism index of baseline, the first night and 1 week later were 7.50±1.11, 3.45±1.22, and 3.51±1.03 per hour（the first night vs baseline, t=26.52, P<0.01; 1 week vs baseline, t=26.12, P<0.01）. There were also significant differences in the bruxism index after wearing the OS. The bruxism index of baseline, the first night and 1 week later were 7.44±1.23, 2.97±0.91 and 6.43±1.02 per hour（the first night vs baseline, t=16.79, P<0.01; 1 week vs baseline, t=3.79, P<0.01）. Compared with the NTI-tss group, the reduction was much less, especially 1 week later. Conclusion Both the NTI-tss and the OS splints can reduce the bruxism index, and have no affect the incidence of micro-arousal. In this short term study, the NTI-tss was more effective than the OS for
the treatment of sleep bruxism.

Key words: occlusal splint, bruxism, polysomnography