The Bruxlab DoIGrind App to Detect Bruxism

About 8 per cent of the world population (7.7 billion) has bruxism, a condition commonly associated with sleep disorders. According to their website, while existing home testing devices are expensive and not patient friendly, Bruxlab makes it possible to detect bruxism in a cheap and easy way.

The Dutch company has developed diagnostic tools to record and quantify any grinding sounds using machine learning, mobile app technology and wearables.

The Bruxlab website and sources below shares info from Michiel Allessie, owner of Bruxlab, about the algorithm used to detect bruxism. Michiel Allessie says the clinical signs are always the same: excessive tooth wear, sensitive teeth, headaches, fatigued jaw muscles in the morning, etc. “The problem is that sleep bruxism can stop spontaneously. Also, a large group of bruxers are not chronic bruxers. So, a dentist cannot determine whether there is active sleep bruxism and the patient is a chronic bruxer using the conventional clinical signs. I see this as a major disadvantage. Now, we can track patients using our DoIGrind app to see if there is active bruxism and if it is chronic. Our Bruxsticker makes it possible to measure movement of the lower jaw during sleep. The integrated nano-accelerometer and Bluetooth chip, in combination with our app, record and filter tooth-grinding sounds over multiple nights.”

Bruxism is a very common medical disorder and known to cause damage to the teeth, sleep disruption, chewing difficulties, headaches and temporomandibular joint dysfunction.

“If bruxism is left untreated, the problems with chronic patients can be very severe in the long term. For non-chronic patients, the long-term problems may be mild. I track those patients with the app twice a year to check that they have not become chronic bruxers.”

What is the idea behind Bruxlab and how does it work? What should dentists and patients know?
”We created an algorithm that can filter any tooth-grinding sounds and tooth contact sounds. The latter often indicate the beginning of a clenching episode. I validated the sounds using the gold standard, polysomnography, better known as a sleep test. This test will tell you if there was muscle activity at the same time that a grinding sound was detected. The device on which the app is loaded is placed next to the bed and records and filters any tooth-grinding sounds. On average, we reduce 8 hours of sleep to 5 minutes of relevant sounds. The sounds are uploaded to the cloud, where the dentist can listen to them. Most dentists recommend the app to prove to patients that they are correct about suspecting sleep bruxism.”

Once bruxism has been detected using the DoIGrind app, what treatment options do you recommend to dentists and patients you have 2 options For the chronic and severe bruxers, “I usually prescribe a splint (night guard). For other patients, I first try behavioral modification through counseling to see if they stop grinding and clenching. That is the greatest advantage about this product: you can use it over and over again at no extra cost to the patient.”

Do I Snore or Grind App iOS. This app will record snoring and grinding sounds made during your sleep, you can listen to them the next morning. An algorithm filters and detects the teeth grinding and snoring sounds. You can choose if you want to record only snoring, grinding or both.

Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/do-i-snore-or-grind/id1154925543

Source: Bruxlab

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruxism

Source : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bruxlabsnore&hl=en_US

Source: https://uk.dental-tribune.com/news/an-easier-way-to-detect-bruxism/