Actuator for oral care in edentulous elderly patients

Abstract

There are currently no technological options in the market for the oral care of edentulous population. Dental Robotics, a company already involved in the production of dental care devices for elderlies, is interested in new technological solutions to attend this sector. The design is challenging as it has to meet several requirements: 1) be built upon an existing platform (the Air 1 handle), 2) to demonstrate potential for efficiently clean different mouth morphologies, 3) to use an actuator that requires minimal maneuver and is easily accepted by patients and be practical for nurses, and all these while showing manufacturing feasibility and production scalability. The methodology followed a combination of design thinking and lean startup, meaning a human centered, technology-based iterative and integrative process of prototyping and test. Through this progressive development, diverse strategies were applied, including literature research, field work observations and empathizing with the problem, comparison of market-available alternatives, exploration of materials and prototyping processes, evaluation of effectiveness and acceptance of different design versions, image analyses to evaluate cleaning capacity, manufacturing process, etc. The result is a validated prototype that meets the technical requirements and represents the optimal solution within the explored options; however, future progress could result from optimizing the motion of the Actuator, improve design features to make the assembly easier, explore different arrangements of tufts textures to increase comfort, increase the sample of mouth morphologies to better represent the edentulous elderly population in The Netherlands, to test the effect of the gum cleaner with Laser Doppler Flowmetry to find out if it could stimulate blood flow (Irrigation) on the gingiva, and for how long, and evaluate the long-term impact of this device in the reduction of Residual Ridge Resorption clinical tests. If proven, this could be an added value offered by the company. The proposal for oral care in edentulous elder patients developed in this work proved promising as market product after further performance and manufacturing process refinements.