The Role of Traumatic Occlusion as an Etiological Factor for Development of Bruxism in Children

Introduction Most of the children during their maturation develop signs of bruxism Purpose Is to establish the role of traumatic occlusion for development of bruxism in children and the cause and effect relationship between the presence of the traumatic occlusal contacts and bruxism patterns in children. Methods As material of this investigation we used 105 children between 7 and 12 years of age divided into 3 groups of 35 patients. The first group was patients with anterior cross bite, the second group of patients had tete a tete bite and the third group had deep bite. The patients were followed for duration of 21 month period. At the first control examination the patients were presented with bruxcheker for objective confirmation of the presence of bruxism. Each patient kept a self-record for the nocturnal bruxism on an individual chart according to the findings of the bruxchecker. The premature traumatic occlusal contacts on the dentition of the children were removed with selective teeth grinding. In the following control examinations, we measured the degree of consistent decrease in frequency of the bruxism episodes according to the individual charts. Results 93.42 %, 80 % and 82.86 % of the patients with traumatic occlusion from the first, second and third group were diagnosed with bruxism. Conclusion Development of bruxism in children is directly proportional with the severity of the traumatic occlusion. The children with bruxism have a postitive response to the treatment of traumatic occlusion therefore we conclude that the bruxism has a cause/effect relationship with traumatic occlusion.