aka Night Guard

To some degree almost everyone will have evidence of dental attrition and abfraction on some teeth. The degree is dependent on age and inherited personal traits. The attrition or occlusal wear is due to anterotrusive and/or laterotrusive excursion that flattens the occlusal contacts while the abfraction is the clenching forces which fractures the cervical of the tooth due to internal stress from the flex and torsion forces

So I spend a lot of time convincing my patient that the brux to hopefully motivate them to wear a night time occlusal shield. I do not use occlusal shields on growing dentition. I do not use the traditional hard acrylic occlusal shields which can be more than 2 or 3 mm thick and used on one arch only – either top or bottom. Over the years there has been follow up studies that shows that the 5 year retention rate of hard occlusal splints is about 3%. Dismal really. Therefore it is true that hard acrylic occlusal splint last a long time because they spend more time in the drawer than in the mouth

On the other hand soft splints made with thermoplastics when made thinner, 1 to 2 mm, has a greater than 90 % retention rate, if not close to 100%. This I state as an anecdotal evidence only as I am quoting my own unofficial clinical data. The reason I can be quite confidence of my assertion is because the soft splints are also the same material I use as my post orthodontic treatment retainers. For over 25 years I have been practicing orthodontics and for most of the cases in that 25 years I have used the thermoplastics as retainers

Maintenance

Refer to https://noordinarydentist.com/2023/05/01/daily-maintenance-of-removable-dental-appliances/