Toothbrush design appropriate for pre-elderly: The relationship of toothbrush bristles number to oral hygiene

Background: The increase in the elderly population leads to a decline in their health and affects the productivity and quality of life. Preventive measures must be taken to improve oral hygiene for the elderly starting from the pre-elderly group so that later it will form healthy and productive elderly. One of the efforts to improve dental hygiene and health is through mechanical tooth cleaning with a toothbrush. However, currently, there is no toothbrush design that is suitable for the condition of the pre-elderly oral cavity. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the design of the number of toothbrush bristles as initial research to obtain an appropriate toothbrush design for the elderly. Method:The study was conducted on 30 participants using a toothbrush with a number of toothbrush bristles paths: with 4 paths, 3 paths, and 2 paths. The effectiveness of tooth brushing hygiene was measured through the debris index before using a toothbrush and after brushing. Result: The results of the Kruskal Wallis test showed a significance value of 0.01 (p <0.05), indicating significant differences in the 4-paths, 3-paths, and 2-paths toothbrush bristles groups. To find out the differences between groups, it was continued with the Mann-Whitney test. The results of the Mann-Whitney test show that there is a significant difference in the ability to clean debris on 3-path and 2-path toothbrush bristles. Conclusion: 3-paths toothbrush bristles have better effectiveness than 4-paths and 2-paths toothbrush bristles