Occlusione dentale e prestazione sportiva: revisione della letteratura

Objectives

A search of PubMed was performed to evaluate the hypothesis that correct occlusion or the use of a splint can improve an athlete's performance.

Materials and methods

A search of PubMed based on the key words dental occlusion and sport and considering works published through February 2010 yielded 72 articles. For this review, we selected 12 of these whose main topic was athletes.

Results

For this review we considered two case-control studies, two reviews, seven pilot studies, and one article regarding the use of a mouthpiece in scuba divers.

Conclusions

It is clear that the muscles of the cranio cervico-mandibular district are involved in sports activities. It is still not clear whether insertion of a splint in the oral cavity can or cannot improve an athlete's performances: data on this issue are discordant. We can conclude that every athlete has to be evaluated individually with appropriate clinical and instrumental methods.