A Clinical Jaw Movement Training Robot for Mouth Opening/Closing and Lateral Movement Training

Abstract

This paper discusses a jaw movement training robot implementing a 6-DOF (degrees of freedom) parallel mechanism, and its application to mouth opening and closing and lateral movement training. Temporomandibular joints (TMJ) syndrome prevents patients from opening their mouths or moving their jaws easily due to problems with mandibular joints, mastication muscles, and other organs involved in food chewing. Conventional therapy involves simple mouth opening apparatuses, although individual techniques vary with the physician. We developed and improved a jaw movement training robot that aids jaw opening and closing and lateral jaw movement training. This system consists of a 6-DOF slave manipulator representing a patient manipulator and a 2-DOF or 3-DOF master manipulator representing the doctor command manipulator.