Objectives: Firstly, to examine the effectiveness of a telehealth approach on compliance with an occlusal splint in bruxism patients. Secondly, to ascertain the effect of using a splint on bruxism activity over time. Thirdly, to investigate the role of user experience and comfort on splint usage rates. Materials & Methods: Candidates with a clinical diagnosis of bruxism will be recruited. They will have 2 overnight home sleep studies (PSG) to objectively measure baseline bruxism activity levels. 50 subjects, confirmed as having bruxism on PSG, will be given a novel occlusal splint with a force sensor device inside it. This sensor will be capable of detecting bruxism and relaying the data to a website where it will be displayed to patient in a user friendly format.
For objective 1, the subjects will be randomly assigned into 2 study groups. One group will have access to personalised data from the website about their bruxism (group D) and the other group will have no data access (Group ND). The compliance of all subjects will be objectively monitored using the same force sensor device. The null hypothesis is that there will be no difference in compliance rates between both groups. Objective 2 will comprise the 50 subjects with bruxism and 12 non-bruxism controls. Their daily bruxism activity will be measured using the splint force sensor. Each subject will also have a sleep study to record bruxism levels periodically over 12 months, to validate the accuracy and consistency of the pressure sensor device. The data will show the characteristics of bruxism in patients with varying levels of splint use. For objective 3, each of the 50 bruxism subjects will complete a user experience questionnaire which will examine subjective reasons for non-compliance and relate these to the objective compliance measured individually by the sensor.
